Invisible Wounds: Healing From Trauma

Hey there, it’s Kerri! Thank you so much for joining me on this latest episode of Invisible Wounds Healing from Trauma. This is episode 20 and we’re going to talk about why we seem to always make the wrong choices in relationships.I’m so glad that we’re walking the path towards healing together!So just a quick reminder, I’m not a clinician, counselor, or physician. I’m a Certified Trauma Support Specialist with lots of lived experience with trauma. Also, the information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and not meant to replace treatment by a doctor or any other licensed professional. Alright let’s dive in!So, over the last few episodes, we’ve talked about different types of relationships: Healthy, Unhealthy, and Abusive. For those of us with a trauma history, many of us keep making mistakes in our choices when it comes to any kind of relationship but especially when it comes to a romantic partner. We can repeat a pattern of choosing someone who is hurtful, damaging, or abusive to us. We wonder why we make these choices over and over again. We don’t understand why we pick a partner that hurts us, is abusive to us. We wonder why we can’t just find someone “nice”, and we lay the blame at our own feet. We can feel that the fault is ours and that there is something wrong with us. We don’t understand what keeps happening, what WE MUST be doing wrong!First, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH US! As we’ve been learning, the choices we make in a romantic partner has everything to do with our history and experiences with trauma! If we were abused and neglected as a child, we may have no sense of self, no self-worth. Our first relationships with our parents or caregivers might have been unhealthy and dysfunctional. We never feel safe, we learn not to trust that these people will care for us. We might have lived in “survival mode” only, never knowing what was going to happen from one minute to the next! These first relationships are crucial to development across our lives in every way. If we have healthy parents or caregivers, we learn that our environment is a safe one, we trust them. This builds the foundation that all of our other relationships are built on. However, if we have dysfunctional, abusive, unsafe caregivers, our foundation is shaky at best! We have no idea who we are, what we want and DON’T want in relationships. We never had anyone who modeled what a good relationship even looks like for us. As we grow up in dysfunctional, unsafe, or abusive environments, we aren’t taught boundaries. Boundaries are so important! They are those “lines” we draw for ourselves with others. They tell us what we will and will not accept regarding behaviors, actions, and attitudes from others. When we are raised in a healthy environment, we are nurtured, valued, respected, and we learn that our needs matter. We have a good sense of what the difference is between acceptable and unacceptable behavior from other people looks like. So, if someone comes into our lives and doesn’t treat us well or if they cross or violate our personal boundaries, we have the ability to walk away from that relationship. It doesn’t serve us or enhance our lives in any way. But if we have weak or no boundaries, we have no clue as to what is healthy regarding relationships. We might continually hang on to a relationship that isn’t good for us, refusing to let it go out of fear: fear of rejection, fear of being alone, fear that no one else will want us, fear of being physically, mentally, or emotionally hurt. We don’t understand why we aren’t ENOUGH! Somewhere in our minds, we convince ourselves that if we just love that person enough, do everything that want the way they want it, we can “love” their destructive behaviors away. I know that when I was in my abusive relationship, that’s what I thought. I just knew that my love, patience, care, and attention would work, it HAD to! I could “fix” him, make him better, right all of his wrongs! He needed me intensely it was almost a feeling you could “touch.” His intensity, desperation, neediness all fed something in me. Just like I had dome with my mother, it became my full-time job to keep him alive, make him better. That caregiver tendency in me came out in full force. He gave me just enough love at the right times to keep me “hooked.” Abusers know exactly how to play those cards by the way! They keep us totally off balance, we never know what’s going to happen, when it will happen, or what it will look like. We live for those “crumbs” of love and affection they give us. Let me tell you, there is not enough love, care, patience, and attention that exists in anyone that can “fix” another person! We can’t “love” abusive behavior out of someone else! We can’t fix anyone else; they would have to address their own issues and fix themselves. Abusers don’t really feel that their behavior is wrong. They can hurt us and apologize, “admitting” that they were wrong, begging for our forgiveness, declaring their love for us, and promising they won’t hurt us again, but it’s a lie! It will happen again, over, and over. They do this to keep us hooked and under their control. They know exactly how to play on our feelings, our love for them. We do love them, there’s no denying that, even though they hurt us. We feel a desperate need to make it work, we have that fear of being alone. Over time, we can also experience something called “trauma bonding.” As abusers over time take away our support systems like family, friends, even our jobs then keep us isolated and under their control, we can begin to feel that we are completely dependent on THEM for our survival. We turn to them for comfort and emotional support, even though they are the ones that hurt us. We have no one else BUT them. We make excuses to others justifying their behavior, even agreeing with it. We can become angry or hostile when others try to step in to try and stop the abuse. Sounds twisted right? It is, but it’s a perfectly understandable response from someone who has no sense of “self” no identity of their own. Our relationships become entangled, enmeshed, we have no idea where we begin and end. Our identity and self-worth are defined by the other person. Their treatment of us, responses, crumbs of affection, comments, criticisms, blame, shaming, isolation, all serve to knock us down to our lowest self. Their treatment of us is the yardstick by which we measure ourselves. If they abuse us, are cruel, violent, or mean, we must have “deserved it” we did something wrong. They reinforce that feeling in us, saying things like “you made me do this” or “this is your fault.”  They tell us we are stupid, slow, ugly, fat, whatever words they use, they easily convince us that these are all true things about ourselves. And if we gather up the courage to leave, they pull out all of the stops to keep us from going. They can go from begging, pleading, declaring their undying love, to threatening to hurt or even kill us if we leave. Another common tactic is them saying that if we leave, they will kill themselves. They won’t do it, they are too selfish, self-important, and self-serving. Even if they by some miracle tried to hurt themselves, that is not under our control. Remember, we have absolutely NO CONTROL over another person! We have no control over what they do, say, or how they react and respond. We only have control over ourselves, what WE do, say, and how WE react and respond!If you remember my episode 13 titled “My Swiss Cheese Theory of Trauma” I explain what happens to those of us who have traumatic histories. Trauma leaves us full of holes. Those holes represent all of the things we didn’t get growing up that we needed. We needed love, guidance, boundaries, respect, care, support, safety. We needed to learn that WE matter, our needs, wants, interests, opinions, everything about us was important! If we didn’t get those things, the holes those unmet needs leave in us are huge, wide-open spaces in our souls, ourselves. We hurt, we feel ‘less than,” we don’t feel that we deserve “good things” or “good people” in our lives. So, in our hurt and confusion, we try to fill up those holes in any way we can. It could be relationships, food, sex, substances, impulse buying (spending money we don’t have), self-harming behaviors, anything we can find. We do these things unconsciously; we don’t think about the deeper “why” of what we’re doing. However, it’s just a short-term fix to a long-term problem.  It’s like trying to put a band-aid on a huge open bleeding wound that really needs stitches. In the long run, we are really just hurting ourselves over and over again. We put on that band-aid and rip it off repeatedly, never treating the wound correctly and giving it a chance to heal. What we are doing is trying to plug up those holes from the outside in, but the only way to heal, to create real and lasting change, is to fill those holes up from the inside out. We have to start by healing ourselves first, doing the really messy, hard, painful work of giving ourselves those things that we didn’t get from others that we so desperately needed!So, as we go through life, full of those holes, desperately looking to fill them up and stop the hurt, we are open and vulnerable to making the wrong choices in people to have romantic relationships with. With no boundaries, based on what our trauma histories have taught us about ourselves, we don’t believe we deserve better. We can have this almost desperate need to be loved, wanted, and needed. Particularly for those of us with a “caregiver” mentality (totally me!) we want to be able to do everything we can, whatever is in our power for someone we love. Is caring for, loving someone, and wanting to do things for another person that we love wrong? No, of course not. However, it should never come at a cost to our personal self, safety, or by sacrificing our whole being! Loving someone doesn’t mean we, as an individual, cease t

Hey there, it’s Kerri! Thank you so much for joining me on this latest episode of Invisible Wounds Healing from Trauma. This is episode 19 and we’re going to talk about what an abusive relationship is, and what it looks like! I’m going to add a disclaimer here, because we are going to be discussing specific aspects of Domestic Violence or Intimate Partner Violence and it could be triggering. If it is, pause the episode. Do some mindful belly breathing, or any of the other tools we’ve learned, or one you like to use to get grounded, centered, and feel safe. Then come back when you’re ready.I’m so glad that we’re walking the path towards healing together!So just a quick reminder, I’m not a clinician, counselor, or physician. I’m a Certified Trauma Support Specialist with lots of lived experience with trauma. Also, the information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and not meant to replace treatment by a doctor or any other licensed professional.  An added note: If you are in a relationship where your safety, mental, physical, and emotional health are at risk, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for help in leaving the relationship safely and other resources. If you are in a situation where you feel you are in immediate danger, please call 911! Alright let’s dive in!In the last few episodes, we talked about what a healthy and unhealthy relationship looks like. While unhealthy relationships can at times FEEL abusive, there is a big difference! This topic is so important to me personally! As a survivor and as someone who has worked with other survivors for over 12 years now, it couldn’t be more important! An abusive relationship is defined as one where there are patterns of behaviors used by one partner to maintain power and control over another partner in an intimate relationship. Yes of course you can be abused by people in other kinds of relationships like with family members. But we are talking today about a relationship involving two people in a romantic or intimate partner situation. I’ll start off by saying abusers are slick! They hide who they really are until we’re hooked. To everyone else, they are wonderful people: they are charming, well-mannered, funny, everyone loves them. They seem to be “pillars” of the community, they help everyone out. They can seem to be a great friend, the one everyone can always count on. That’s the front they put on for the rest of the world. That isn’t who they are behind closed doors. They KNOW that what they do to their partner could get them into trouble, so they hide it very well!When we first meet them, they don’t have giant red warning labels on the screaming “danger, warning, run away!” They should, but they don’t. We are taken in by their charm, sense of humor, looks, manners, everything. I know when I met my abuser, I thought he was everything I could ever want in a partner. He was handsome, funny, charming in that “bad boy” southern way, everything about him drew me in. They shower us with love, kindness, caring, and they pay attention to everything we say. It's called love bombing. They listen to us, HEAR us. For those of us with a trauma history, It’s like catnip to a cat! We soak up all that love and attention we didn’t get growing up. We can also be drawn in to their “intensity.” They are passionate about things. Often, right after we start seeing them and for me it was like a week later, they look deeply into our eyes and say something like “I’ve never felt this way before about anyone, but I’m in love with you!” Sound familiar? With almost every survivor I’ve worked with, this is how it started! Things can move very quickly after that. I know I pretty much moved in with my abuser almost immediately. We feel like we’re wrapped up in this cocoon of love and warmth, it’s bliss! We begin taking care of them, they need us, so those of us with a caregiver’s tendency fall right into our familiar patterns. We love them, so it’s natural that we should want to take care of them, make them happy, right? In the beginning, they seem to care for us too, do little things for us just to make us happy…but at some point, the scales begin to tip and the balance begins to shift...It could begin at any point, and “seemingly” innocent enough. Maybe they start making little comments about things we are doing, or NOT doing. Maybe the meal we made was not quite right. Maybe the laundry we did for them came out a little wrinkled, and they don’t like wrinkles. Maybe they make a little comment about what we are wearing on a particular day. Small things, nothing major. We apologize profusely, promise to do things better next time. They seem satisfied, and life goes on. Then, maybe when something isn’t to their liking next time, they yell at us, or say something nasty to us. It startles us, it “stings” more than what they’d said to us before. They might follow their behavior up with “I’m sorry” or “I didn’t mean it” trying to make it seem better. Again, we apologize, feeling like we just can’t do things correctly, obviously it’s OUR fault, right?They also don’t want us to go anywhere or do anything without them. When a relationship is new and exciting, it seems normal to want to be with that person most or all of the time. To do things with them, experience things together. However, over time, this being “joined at the hip” behavior becomes controlling. We might not even seem to be able to go to the grocery store alone or run an errand without them coming along. If we do, they might begin questioning us about what we did, who we saw, did we go anywhere else, etc. They might be suspicious of who we were around, even going so far as to accuse us of cheating on them. After a while, to avoid these situations, we either have them come with us, or we don’t go anywhere at all. When I had my car, my abuser would take parts off of it and put them under his pillow at night while he slept, making sure I couldn’t leave. Also, over time, and almost without our knowing it, they start cutting us off from friends and even family. At first, they go with us to family get-togethers, or to see our friends. But soon, they begin to make comments, expressing their dislike for these people in our lives. Perhaps they make comments about how they feel these other people “treat us” or that they felt they saw these people manipulate us, talk down to us, whatever it might be. We may begin to question these other people’s motives, thinking that your abuser must be right, WE must be missing something. We might start making excuses as to why we can’t come to get togethers with our family or friends. We opt out in order to “keep the peace” at home. After a while, people quit asking or inviting us. This adds to the isolation, cutting us off from any support system we might have had. The abuser tells us that THEY are all we need! But their friends, family, connections are important. My abuser’s friends were always around, the party was always at our house. They watched as he abused me in almost every way, and no one ever stepped in to help me. I also helped take care of his father who had very advanced Parkinson’s Disease. He drank very heavily, would mess himself and I was expected to clean him up. He would also “grope” me every chance he got. It was awful but I didn’t dare complain. Another isolation tactic is the abuser moving with us to a new state, or place where we aren’t near our support systems. We might move to somewhere rural, remote, away from big cities or towns. When I was with my abuser, we were already in a remote small town so cutting me off was easy. I was already 4 states away from my family in Ohio. We had no phone, and this was long before cell phones, so I had no way to even call for help. His Uncle lived right next door, however. One night to avoid getting physically hurt, not long after moving in with him, I ran out of the house to his uncle’s place, banging on the door screaming for help. His daughter opened the door, and I begged her to let me in. I was terrified he would find me; I was completely panicked. From somewhere in the house, I heard his uncle tell his daughter to shut the door. She gave me a sympathetic look, then shut the door in my face. So needless to say, no help from them...or anyone.They also might begin sabotaging us at work if we are allowed to work at all. They might begin calling us constantly at work, checking up on us. The constant calls might be noticed by our co-workers or our boss. If abusers want to really cause trouble, they might begin calling our boss, or co-workers directly, trying to get us fired by making things up about us. They might disable our car or torpedo any childcare arrangements. They might not leave us with money for public transportation.  I wasn’t allowed to work; he didn’t work either. His father gave us money sometimes for food, or we had to literally go out and find our own food. There was one time someone my abuser knew hired us to clean up an old abandoned mobile home he bought. He was an older man, not married, wanting to clean up the mobile home to rent it out. The whole place was literally inches deep with mouse droppings and dead mice. It was awful but I worked really hard every day at it. This man also took the opportunity to grab and grope me at every opportunity. When I finally told my abuser about it, he said it was MY FAULT, he blamed me for it. As we become more and more isolated, the violence gets worse. It doesn’t have to be physical. That’s still one of the biggest “myths” out there that many survivors believe. “They didn’t hit me, so it’s not abuse.” Emotional, verbal, mental, financial, sexual, and now digital abuse are just as damaging. There were times that I was experiencing such torture in all of these other ways, I often would wish to myself that he would just hit me and get it over with. He would keep me up for days at a time, making me sit with him while he drank, and li

Hey there, It’s Kerri. I hope that you are well and doing the best you can during the holiday season. I am going to take a break for the rest of this month from the podcast. I really feel the pull of focusing as much as I can on my family this holiday season, more so this year. There has been so much going on, lots good, some things have been a bit more challenging. I’m like everyone else. I am so busy, rushing through my days in a blur, in spite of doing my best to stay present. However, my family needs as much of my attention as I can give them. My son is going through a huge transitional phase right now -very good, but very stressful. My husband is older, he’s 73 and not in the best of health right now. He’s also a quadruple heart bypass survivor, and while the surgery is not out of the ordinary, he doesn’t take the best care of himself, in spite of all of my efforts. He had the surgery about 9 years ago, so I am more keenly aware of time being precious. This has been an amazing year for so many reasons and I am so very grateful for all that I have. I am also eternally grateful for all of you! Your support has made such a huge difference in my life, and saying thank you just doesn’t seem to cover it!I am also going to take a look at the show’s content, and I have big plans for next year! I will be back with the first new show of 2024 on January 6th!  If you have any comments, suggestions, or ideas, please let me know! . You can always find me and message me on Facebook at Kerri Walker, and my website invisiblewoundshealingfromtrauma.comIn the meantime, you can always check out my YouTube channel for all of my past episodes and video exercises. Please also visit my website for lots of information and resources. I hope this holiday season finds you taking extra good care of yourself, and as always, we’ll talk soon!

Hey there, it’s Kerri. Thank you so much for joining me on this latest episode of Invisible Wounds: Healing from Trauma. In this episode 44 and I’m going to talk about why grief is so intense around the holiday season.I’m so glad that we’re walking the path towards healing together!So just a quick reminder, I’m not a clinician, counselor, or physician. I’m a Certified Trauma and Resiliency Life Coach, a Certified Trauma Support Specialist, Advocate, and someone with lots of lived experience with trauma. Also, the information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and not meant to replace treatment by a doctor or any other licensed professional. All right let’s dive in!So grief. Grieving around the holidays can be so intense and hard. But it isn’t only missing those who are no longer with us. Grief takes so many forms, and we grieve losses of any kind. We can grieve the loss of a situation, maybe we lost a job or an opportunity we were hoping for. Perhaps we also then grieve the loss of financial stability. Maybe we are grieving the loss of a relationship, any relationship be it family, friends, coworkers, and others. We can also grieve the “idea” of relationships. If we grew up in toxic and dysfunctional families, we feel the loss of what we wanted, what “should” have been, rather than what we currently have. I know that for me, missing what I wanted, my “ideal” family, especially at the holiday season was a tough one for me to grow through. Growing up, the fantasy world in my head was a much nicer place to live than the real world. In my imagination, everyone was well, happy, together in a way they really didn’t exist in truth. Everyone got along, no fighting, no drunkenness, no illness, no frequent moves. Things were happy, stable, people were stable. As I grew older, and had my own kids, I focused on them, making the holidays wonderful and magical for them. Doing all of the things I wished my parents had done with me but didn’t. However, I hadn’t ever really dealt with my own grief and trauma, I was just trying to outrun it as fast as I could. When my mom died in 1991, many of those things I’d been trying to outrun, finally caught up with me in a BIG way. My relationship with her was so complicated, so enmeshed, I couldn’t see where I began and ended without her. With her gone, who was I really? That first holiday season brought on waves of grief, huge crashing waves that I thought would drown me. That was followed always by the constant grief of losing my little sister in December of 1977. Then piled on top of that, my dad’s hasty remarriage just a few months after my mom died and I was just completely adrift. I continued to focus on my kids during the holidays even though I was often tempted to just stop, freezing in place with my pain. Over the years, other losses piled up, lost jobs, lost homes, lost situations, and opportunities. Then my kids got older, grew up and moved on. Again I was completely lost -without them to care for on a daily basis, who was I? You sense the theme here right?Due to everything I had been through, all of the trauma, dysfunction, loss, and lack of stability, I had never had the opportunity to find out just who Kerri really was! I had no idea what I liked, didn’t like, what I liked to do, nothing. I had always identified as a caretaker, I took care of my mom, raised my little sister, cared for my husband and my kids, but never really myself. I didn’t even know how to begin. It was a very, very long process, one I still work at every day. With lots of time, lots of therapy, lots of slow steps, not always forward, I slowly began to put my own pieces together for the first time. Realizing that I, on my own, was a being worthy and deserving of just as much love, care, and attention as anyone else, was a big moment! I had worth, just being me! What a concept! Then I had to learn how to care for myself, how to nourish and develop my senses, how to be present. I had to learn how to be me in a totally new way, not through anyone else, not by how much I cared for or did for anyone else, just me. This was especially true during the holidays. I had to work through my grief, losses, and those old ideas of what I thought I was lacking. I began to think about what I did have, how many people I had that I loved and loved me. I had a lot to be grateful for and had to fight all those well-worn scarcity thoughts. Then I slowly began to piece together the parts of my childhood holiday memories that were good. How we used to gather with our family at the holidays and how good that felt. How hard my mom worked to make Christmas special and magical. Seeing the look of joy on my sister’s face as we raced to the living room knowing Santa had come. All of it. Does it still hurt at the holidays? Of course, but now I focus on the good, more so than the bad. I stay as present as I can and enjoy the moments of happiness, love, and belonging that I have created for myself and my family. We make wonderful new memories every year, and that helps tip the scales back into balance.Is it easy? No, it takes a lot of work and intention to create anything new. Pushing back against those habitual things we know so well is a process, but it can and will get better. You have to want it, then find ways in which to stitch your own heart back together one small piece at a time. Healing can be messy and painful, but it is always worth it in the end. Focusing on what we DO have, rather than what we DON’T have truly helps more than you think. If you really desire change, start there, with gratitude practice daily. You can use an app, or journal, or your computer, whatever you find is most supportive for you. But every day is the key, don’t quit. If you need ideas on things to be grateful for and why you are grateful for them (Don’t forget that part, why you are grateful and how these things make you feel is an important step) Google ideas, there are a ton out there!A simple exercise that might help you this holiday season is to write a letter to someone or something you miss. If you are missing someone this holiday, write them a letter. Even if they are gone, write out your feelings, write to them what you miss about them, or even what you don’t miss about them.  If you need to get some anger or hurt out, do it. Then when you are finished, crumple up the letter, burn it (safely) tear it up, but get rid of it. Then your feelings are out of your head and onto physical paper, then as you destroy the letter, it’s gone. If there is a situation, or opportunity you are missing, do the same thing. Write out your feelings around it, then destroy it. It can be a very freeing thing to get it out of your mind, and maybe it will take more than once, but do it, start today! Thank you so much for taking the time to listen today and please keep on listening! Wherever you listen, please like, subscribe, favorite, follow me, and please also share widely! What you think really matters to me too, so comment on the show, what you think, whatever is on your mind. You can find me on Facebook at Kerri Walker, and Invisible Wounds: Healing from Trauma, on Twitter at Kerriwalker58, my website invisiblewoundshealingfromtrauma.com, and my YouTube channel Invisible Wounds: Healing from Trauma. Look for my new episodes dropping every Monday on all of your favorite podcasts, music, and listening apps! Please take extra good care of yourself, and we’ll talk soon!

Hey there, it’s Kerri. Thank you so much for joining me on this latest episode of Invisible Wounds: Healing from Trauma. This is episode 41, and I’m going to take a little bit of time for a reflective moment or two with this one!I’m so glad that we’re walking the path towards healing together!So just a quick reminder, I’m not a clinician, counselor, or physician. I’m a Certified Trauma and Resiliency Life Coach, a Certified Trauma Support Specialist, Advocate, and someone with lots of lived experience with trauma. Also, the information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and not meant to replace treatment by a doctor or any other licensed professional. All right let’s dive in!So reflections…..I turn 60 on Monday November 13th, and this has felt pretty “big” to me. Typically my birthdays haven’t been a big deal. I think turning 40 made me stop a bit. But the fact that I was turning 60 hit me about 5 months ago. This past year has been absolutely amazing in so many ways. I mean in December of last year, I didn’t have an organization, a website, a podcast, nothing! I have learned so many new things this year, things I never thought I would be able to get this ol’ brain damaged lady to learn! But learn I did, step by step the way I always talk to you about! The age thing for me has a few components, marked by some of the traumas in my life. For many years, my time was marked by certain things I needed to get past. For example, my little sister passed away suddenly at 6 years old. I was terrified (irrationally of course) that my children wouldn’t be “safe” until each of them reached 7 years old. Once they passed 6 safely, I was more reassured.For me, getting through 52 was a moment. My mom died at 52, and even though she had major chronic and complex health issues, I was (irrationally again) afraid I wouldn’t make it past 52! I did of course! I did an interview earlier this year with Carrie Bower on her series Visible Women which looks at women and aging, how they feel about it and what concerns them regarding it. I hadn’t thought much about it until then. But as I looked at my life and what I’d gone through, some pretty significant things came up. First of all there was the childhood trauma piece. I have this video posted to my website and it’s Dr. Nadine Burke-Harris who is the Founder of the Center for Youth Wellness and is the current Surgeon General of California. Her Ted Talk entitled “How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across A Lifetime” was eye opening for me. She talks about the Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire or ACES and what that means. Out of 10 questions, every yes gets a point.  4 or more is considered high, my score is an 8.  What struck me the most was the fact that those with a high ACES score could potentially have their life expectancy cut by 20 years! That was a bit sobering.  Then there are the effects I have due to my burst brain aneurysm and Traumatic Brain Injury. This brings up for me the possibility of Dementia, Alzheimer’s, and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, research has indicated that those with moderate to severe Traumatic Brain Injury have in increased risk of cognitive decline or dementia.  The key studies showing an increased risk found that older adults with a history of moderate TBI had a 2.3 times greater risk of developing Alzheimer's than seniors with no history of head injury. Those with a history of severe TBI had a 4.5 times greater risk. Another sobering thought. CTE is a progressive and fatal brain disease associated with repeated Traumatic Brain Injuries. The only way to diagnose it is to examine the brain after death. There currently is no diagnostic test available to find it in the living. This is another concern for me. I worry more about what my children will have to deal with. After all, if I’m not aware what’s happening, I won’t know. But my children will. What will they have to deal with? What will they do with me? I laugh and tell my son who lives close to me here in Phoenix that he “gets” me when I’m older, but what kind of a burden will that be for him? On the flip side of this coin is the fact that in spite of all I’ve been through, I’ve survived, I’m still here. Every day that I wake up, I practice my gratitude routine. I am extraordinarily grateful for every moment. When I’m struggling ( as we all do) I bring my thoughts around to that fact. I take my moments as gracefully as I can, and think about all I’ve done, and all I’ve learned. I am so very fortunate to be able to do what I’m doing, helping others, and learning how to spread my wings at 60! It really goes to show that it doesn’t matter how old you are as long as you never stop learning, growing, expanding your horizons. Don’t ever stop being open to new ideas and what life has to offer you. I am also grateful to all of YOU! Those who listen to my show, follow me, support me, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I wouldn’t be where I am this moment without you! Thanks for allowing me this time today and for listening and please keep on listening! Wherever you listen, please like, subscribe, favorite, follow me, and again share widely! What you think really matters to me too, so comment on the show, what you think, whatever is on your mind. You can find me on Facebook at Kerri Walker, and Invisible Wounds: Healing from Trauma, on Twitter at Kerriwalker58,  my website invisiblewoundshealingfromtrauma.com, and my YouTube channel Invisible Wounds: Healing from Trauma. Look for my new episodes dropping every Monday on all of your favorite podcasts, music, and listening apps! Please take extra good care of yourself, and we’ll talk soon!

In this episode I talk to Sammie Bennett whi is an amazing author, writer, and creator and lives in Winter Garden, Florida with her two kids and husband. She loves chai lattes, PBS Masterpiece shows, and walks with her wild dog. She is also a survivor of childhood trauma and hopes her stories and poems speak to other survivors. Link to Sammie's beautiful book on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Upside-Down-Forest-Fables-Trauma-Recovery/dp/B0C1J3N3BW/ref=sr_1_1?crid=VLQ52M2N2LPC&keywords=the+upside+down+forest&qid=1683660667&sprefix=the+upside+down+forest%2Caps%2C235&sr=8-1

In this episode, we talk about how brain injury can happen as a result of being in an abusive relationship.

In keeping with October's theme of Domestic Violence Awareness month, in this episode, we talk about self-compassion, self-forgiveness as survivors of abuse.

This episode begins a new chapter for me! October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and each weekly episode this month will be in both video and audio format. I felt that because the subject matter is so important and sensitive, I wanted it to feel like we were having a conversation with each other. So please hop on over to my YouTube channel Invisible Wounds: Healing from Trauma and watch the episodes, and please let me know what you think! Positive or negative, it doesn’t matter. Your comments will only help me to get better!Disclaimer/Trigger Warning: I will be discussing some of my specific experiences with domestic violence or intimate partner violence and it can be triggering, so please listen or watch carefully and safely. I’m not telling you all of this to be purposefully triggering but I want those of you out there listening to understand just how twisted the branches of abuse can be. This also might reach people who don’t understand the dynamics of an abusive relationship. They don’t understand how a person can get into one, and they don’t understand why “you just don’t leave!” It is so complicated; it isn’t just a matter of “stay or go.”

Hey there, it’s Kerri! Thank you so much for joining me on this latest episode of Invisible Wounds Healing from Trauma. This is episode 34 and we’re going to talk about being either extroverted or introverted as survivors of trauma.I’m so glad that we’re walking the path towards healing together!So just a quick reminder, I’m not a clinician, counselor, or physician. I’m a Certified Trauma and Resiliency Life Coach, a Certified Trauma Support Specialist, Advocate, and someone with lots of lived experience with trauma. Also, the information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and not meant to replace treatment by a doctor or any other licensed professional. All right, let’s dive in!This week, I thought I would bring up a topic actually suggested by my son Ryan! It’s an interesting aspect of human nature in general. What makes some people outgoing, driven, always upbeat and ready for the next thing? What makes other people shy, fearful, preferring their own company over the company of others? These differences happen naturally as people develop their own personalities, have their own experiences of themselves, others, and the world around them. But for those of us that have experienced trauma, it throws a whole new perspective into that mix!We know that experiencing trauma at any age, but especially as children changes the way our brains wire themselves. When we have lots of things happen to us that affect us negatively and we are always on high alert for danger, our brains, bodies, and nervous systems react accordingly. We don’t have a sense of ourselves, who we really are as individuals. We may not have had the opportunity to develop likes, hobbies, or friendships. We may have missed out on having that loving, compassionate parent or caregiver sit with us when we are sad, angry, afraid, or confused. When we lack that kind of comfort and guidance, we don’t know what to do with how we feel. We don’t know how to sort out our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. We also aren’t taught how to create our own personal boundaries. We have no idea where we begin and end, and where others begin and end.  So we grow up having to figure it out all on our own. Sometimes, this works out, but often it doesn’t. We don’t know who to trust, we don’t know who we can count on to be there for us. We don’t know who is safe, and who isn’t. So many of the people who were supposed to love us, guide us, and keep us safe, didn’t. This builds up in us as a lack of self-confidence, we don’t trust in our own judgement, we don’t trust that we are going to make the “right” decisions or choices. So if we don’t trust ourselves, how can we trust anyone else?This can lead to several different types of behaviors. For some, becoming the overachiever, the perfectionist, the workaholic, that “Type A” personality, always on, always going, always driven. For some, the caregiver becomes how we function, we take care of everyone else, except for ourselves. For others, we can become too trusting, with no personal boundaries. We overshare our stories and ourselves, even with complete strangers. We want so badly to be validated, heard, and understood, we tell everyone we meet our entire life story, it just comes pouring out! For others, shutting down, staying isolated, being afraid of anything or anyone new, becomes how we operate. We stay stuck, unable to figure out why, why we can’t move forward, why we’re so damn scared of everything!I feel like I have been on both ends of the spectrum, and many points in between! Because I had no idea who I was, I measured my own self-worth, my own value against how much I did for others, and how they responded. I have been that driven, “Type A” personality, at one point having 3 full time jobs (I still have no idea how I did that!)! It was like I was saying “See? See how hard I work?” Give me validation, give me compliments, give me something, ANYTHING!! Over the years, I adapted, changed myself to suit those around me. When it didn’t work, when things went wrong, who did I blame? ME of course! I wasn’t what others needed or wanted. Why wasn’t I good enough for “THEM?” Then I’ve been on the other side of the spectrum where I was completely frozen, paralyzed by fear. Afraid of people, situations, change, challenges, anything, and everything! If I had only just known how to be “myself” whoever that was, what might that have changed for me? It took me so long to figure just the basics of what made me..ME! I had to first let go of seeking outside validation from others as a way to measure my worth. That was really hard to let go of it was a lifetime of habit. I had to really think about what my core values and strengths were. Who was I? What did I believe in? What did I value in others? What kinds of behaviors did I like in other people? Did I have those qualities in myself? What did I like to do? What didn’t I like to do? What was really my favorite color. Was I kind? Was I trustworthy? Was I honest? ? I mean it got down to those basic things, things lots of people just intrinsically know about themselves, but I had to work it out. That’s how lost I was. I had to start building myself from the ground up. I took those core things I decided about myself and built up from there, and I’m still building! Do I have 100% complete faith and trust in myself, and my abilities? No, I don’t, but I’m getting there. I had to be my own comforter, guide, safe space, best friend, all of it. When you think about it, it really isn’t a huge puzzle. We don’t know what we don’t know!! We operate with what we learned through our experiences. If you never had anyone to show you how to “be” in the world, and you had to just figure it out, you have done the best you could with the knowledge that you had! You have choices now; you can be whoever you want to be. Whether you are an introvert, or an extrovert depends on so much! There is also no “right” way to be. If you prefer to keep your circle small, and enjoy your own company best, that’s perfectly ok! If you really like people, and want more connection, great! You have to do what feels right for YOU, not do what others tell you or “think” you should do! They aren’t you they haven’t walked in your shoes. Others may mean well when they say things like “You should get out more” or on the flip side “Do you ever stay home?” but only you can decide what’s right for you. I am an introvert operating in an extroverted world! I am involved in meetings, trainings, speaking engagements, and lots of other things, but it takes so much energy. I like my alone time. I am lucky that for the time being I work from home, and I like it that way! I can work at my own pace, concentrate better, and get so much more done on my own. My personal circle of people (friends, aquaintences)  is really small, and I’m okay with that too! You have to live your life according to your needs and wants! If you want to change your approach, change it, but start small. If you need to slow things down, slow down (If you’re that driven type of person). If you’d like to get back out there in the world a bit, try joining a group either online or in person to start. You can find local groups that meet either way by searching on the web. Seek out supportive and like-minded folks, just remember your boundaries; set them and hold them firmly!So, this is where I like to close us out with a new exercise that we can add to that “mindfulness” toolbox we’re building together! Remember, you don’t have to do this now, or at all if you don’t want to, but you might just listen and tuck it away in your mind for future reference.We are going to do a very short exercise today, something easy. A brief writing exercise to help you identify and set a goal for yourself in finding out whether or not you’d like to be a bit more introverted, or extroverted. If you’d like to try this with me, please get a notebook, a piece of paper, even a sticky note and a pen or pencil. You could even type it out in a word doc if you like. Whatever way you participate is fine, as long as it works for you, that’s what matters. I’d like to invite you to find a place that’s quiet, calm, and as free from distractions as possible. If you’d like you could light some candles, put on some quiet calming music, burn some incense, or use some of your favorite essential oils on the palms of your hands. Breath in the scent. Remind yourself that you are in a safe space, you are safe in this moment, in the now. Let’s start with our mindful belly breathing to get more centered. Breathe slowly in through your nose, your belly naturally pushing out as you inhale, to a count of 5. Hold your breath for a count of 1. Then slowly exhale out of your mouth, your belly should naturally move in as you exhale, to a count of 5. Do this five times.  1. First, I’d like you to think about who you are, as we’ve just talked about. Who is in your own personal “circle” of people ( friends, acquaintances, etc.). Write them down.   2.What are the qualities you like about the size of your “circle?” Is it comfortable? Is it easy or Is it busy and exciting? Write down what you like about your current circle of people in your life. ·3. Next, write out what you don’t like about this circle of people. Is there anything that bothers you about it? Or is everything alright the way it is?·4. If you have identified anything that is bothering to you, or if you’d like to make a change, what might that be? What change would you like to make?·5. Finally, what is one thing you could do to make this change that you’d like to see? Something small, and easy to start with? When could you begin to make that change? Set a date and start it.I hope this exercise was something you found helpful, and it’s more tools to add to our “mindful” toolbox that we’re building together. Whenever you need to go to that toolbox and pull out any skill, we’ve learned in order to feel more grounded, safe, and connected, do it!! I ha

Hey there, it’s Kerri! I just wanted to hop on and just let you know that I’m taking a week off of podcast production. I have lots of exciting interviews coming up for guests on the show, I know you’ll like! So I’ll pick back up again with my next episode on September 24th.I also wanted to thank you so much to all of you, for listening! Your support and sharing the show, videos, and my website has made such a difference! I’ve had people reach out to me from all walks of life, looking for services and support. I couldn’t do this without you! For any new listeners, welcome! I hope you find the content helpful and can connect something from my experiences to some of your own.I am so proud of you, for how you keep showing up every day, how you keep taking those tiny baby steps forward towards leaning, growth and healing. It can truly suck, and be really hard, but it’s necessary to go through it, to get to the other side. We have to show up for our own rescue, we have to save ourselves, it’s the only way.I hope you have a week filled with peace, joy, good health, and lots of positive moments!Please take extra good care of yourself, and we’ll talk soon!

Hey there, it’s Kerri! Thank you so much for joining me on this latest episode of Invisible Wounds Healing from Trauma. This is episode 33 and we’re going to talk about finding our “anchor points” and why this is so important for us as survivors of trauma. I’m so glad that we’re walking the path towards healing together! So just a quick reminder, I’m not a clinician, counselor, or physician. I’m a Certified Trauma and Resiliency Life Coach, a Certified Trauma Support Specialist, Advocate, and someone with lots of lived experience with trauma. Also, the information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and not meant to replace treatment by a doctor or any other licensed professional.  All right, let’s dive in! This week, I wanted to talk about being rooted in the present, in the moment, and how to develop a kind of “self-rescue” plan for those times when we feel lost, adrift, in the darkness of our own thoughts. This episode is especially dedicated to those who feel like they are at the breaking point.  As survivors of trauma, we have been through many awful, horrible things, things that should never have happened to us, things we didn’t ask for or want. Things no one should ever have to go through. These events have completely changed us in almost every way. It colors not only how we see ourselves, but the world around us. We try so very hard to control what happens in our lives as a result. When our traumas happened to us, we had no control. But often, the more we try to control things, the more out of control we feel. One reason is that we are trying to control things that are not within our power TO control. We can only control what WE do, say, and how we react, or respond, not other people, places, events. We try anyway and it can end up being this vicious cycle and as we get more and more desperate to hang on and control things, we spiral completely out of control with our thoughts, feelings, and emotions. It’s kind of like trying to keep a hold of a tornado. Or, if you are like me, you can shut down completely becoming numb, frozen, unable to move, think, or react.  I have shut down to the point where I couldn’t get out of bed. I was so numb and desperate; I began to self-harm. I wanted to see if I could feel anything, anything at all. This also followed along with my lifelong pattern of taking things out on myself. I was punishing myself. This feels scary, but here we go with full honesty! A few years ago, it got so bad that I knew if I didn’t do something, a more drastic event would happen I might try to end my life. So, I reached out to my mental health team (They have worked with me for years and are a wonderful support system) and before I knew it, I was inpatient in a behavioral health facility. I was there for 11 days, and it was quite an experience. It wasn’t a fancy private hospital; it was a state-run facility. Did it help? In a way it did. I didn’t learn anything new, all of the classes and groups that you had to attend talked about trauma and mental health: Things I already knew. But it gave me a unique perspective on myself. Many of the people were young, had been there many times before, knew the system. Some had smuggled in drugs or could get them from sources they had on the outside, so there were lots of dealing and exchanges. There were those that had extreme outbursts and couldn’t control themselves. It was often pretty scary but at the same time, I saw myself in a lot of them. I began to think of my situation in a different way. I already had the tools and the knowledge to pull myself up out of the darkness, I just had to use them. I knew feeling like this was not what I wanted. I wanted to live, I wanted to feel, be a part of my own life again.  I began to really think about what I had, the people and things that I had in my life that needed me. My partner, my children, my family, my pets, my work. These became my “anchor points” my reasons for being in the world. My trauma history had not allowed me to develop a sense of myself, all on my own. I was always someone’s child, someone’s girlfriend, someone’s wife, mother, employeeSo, If I needed to begin by knowing that if something happened to me it would affect those closest to me negatively, that was okay. It was a way to anchor myself to the world, to being. I slowly began crawling up out of that pit, learning more and more about just how deeply all of my traumatic experiences had impacted me, why I felt, behaved, and reacted the ways that I did. My therapist helped so much, but I also began researching and reading on my own. When I began deep-diving into Trauma-Informed Care, that completely changed everything for me. I began to understand myself in a completely new way. It was not my fault; I was not to blame. My constantly overactive and hypervigilant nervous system, brain, and body were reacting in a completely biologically correct way given my trauma and past learning history, environment, even genetics! Throw in the impacts I have due to my brain injury and the burst brain aneurysm I suffered, it’s no wonder I felt the way I did! I began to let go of the idea that everything was my fault, that I was irreparably broken. I began to forgive myself, give myself grace, compassion, all of the things I so desperately needed from myself. I was on the path to getting better, slowly, but I was walking the walk! Those anchor points I identified for myself were the first steppingstones, the first foundational pieces in beginning my healing journey. They grounded me, they kept me here while I figured out the rest. When we are so deeply into our darkness, we lose sight of just how much we mean to others. We often don’t  really understand just how much our presence, our being, brings to the world. We are important, we have an impact, we matter! Just a note about me: Am I completely better, healed, and whole? No, I’m not, and I admit that completely! I still have days where I struggle, but now I know how to recognize what is happening and take the steps I need to in order to care more gently for myself on those days. If I can, I start with sensory basics, soft clothes, soothing smells, things I can see, touch, smell, or hold to ground me. I allow myself to rest and I nourish my body with good simple food and lots of water.  I want you to think about what your anchor points are in your own life. In spite of how alone and isolated you feel, something, someone needs you here. We ALL need you! A person, a pet, a plant, a cause, it doesn’t matter who or what it might be. I truly believe we are all here for a reason, we just have to find it. We matter as human beings, all by ourselves. Not the way we think we have to measure up to others’ expectations: and most certainly not by comparing ourselves to anyone else! We all know those people who seem to have been through so much, and just seem to rise effortlessly above it all, and have it all together. Take my word for it, NO ONE has it all together! Everyone fights battles no one else can see, believe me! Think about this for a moment: who do you want to tell your story? YOU want to be the storyteller, the narrator of your own life and experiences. Someday it’ll be you that others look to for guidance, for help in how to heal. How cool would THAT be?? You will get there, just do the work, start small, one baby step forward at a time. Believe me, if I can do it, so can you, I promise! We’ll get there together! So, this is where I like to close us out with a new exercise that we can add to that “mindfulness” toolbox we’re building together! Remember, you don’t have to do this now, or at all if you don’t want to, but you might just listen and tuck it away in your mind for future reference. We are going to build a grounding sensory toolkit together.  A sensory toolkit is a small box or bag where you keep a few items that you can use to help you ground when you have difficult days. This has been so helpful for me! You can put into your toolkit whatever you want. You may want to have a big one to keep at home, and another that is portable that you can take with you out into the world.  Let’s start with our mindful belly breathing. Breathe slowly in through your nose, your belly naturally pushing out as you inhale, to a count of 5. Hold your breath for a count of 1. Then slowly exhale out of your mouth, your belly should naturally move in as you exhale, to a count of 5. Do this five times. Optimizing your toolkit: You may find one or two senses to be more helpful than others. Most people already have developed sensory grounding resources without realizing that is what they were doing - for example, using soothing music. Think about some of the things that have helped you already and build on them. See if you can find strategies that help with ‘overactivated’ trigger states (anger, panic, anxiety) as well ones that help with ‘under activated” trigger states (numbness, depression, dissociation) (Boone et al, 2011).  A list of possible items to place in your toolkit: Sight:  Images or photos of a few people, places or pets that evoke positive feelings or memories Images or art with soothing colors Notes with meaningful quotes or affirmations A snow globe or glitter jar (instructions for making your own here!) Flameless color changing candles  Sound:  Earbuds or noise cancelling headphones A calming playlist, with music, meditations, stories, nature sounds, or ASMR. A tiny music box.  Any small instrument such as chimes, a xylophone or a kalimba  Touch:  Soft, squeezable Stuffed animals (Lots of people love Squishmallows !) Body pillow  Weighted blanket Craft feathers or pom-poms  Manipulatable: A beaded necklace or bracelet Fidget toys  Putty or plasticine (think Silly Putty, Play-Doh, modeling clay!) Pipe cleaners Temperature changing: Hand warmers  Heating pad Cooling lotion or salve with peppermint or menthol Gel eye mask (kept it in the fridge) Instant cold packs  Scent Essential Oils

Hey there, it’s Kerri! Thank you so much for joining me on this latest episode of Invisible Wounds Healing from Trauma. This is episode 32 and we’re going to talk about practicing gratitude, and how it can make significant changes in our lives! I’m so glad that we’re walking the path towards healing together! So just a quick reminder, I’m not a clinician, counselor, or physician. I’m a Certified Trauma and Resiliency Life Coach, a Certified Trauma Support Specialist, Advocate, and someone with lots of lived experience with trauma. Also, the information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and not meant to replace treatment by a doctor or any other licensed professional.   Alright, let’s dive in! I wanted to share with you the experience of practicing gratitude. It has really begun to change my life in so many ways. There is science behind the benefits of it, and there is a way to practice it so that it “sticks” in our traumatized brains! The word gratitude comes from the Latin word gratia which, depending on how it’s used, means grace, graciousness, or gratefulness. Gratitude involves all of these things. Gratitude is being thankful and having an appreciation for what an individual has, receives, or experiences. We acknowledge the “goodness” in our lives. We can acknowledge and be grateful for ourselves too, what we’ve overcome, accomplished, and survived! This in turn can open us up to connecting outside of ourselves: connecting us to things bigger than ourselves, be it other people, nature, the environment, or even a “higher power.”  Positive psychology shows that practicing gratitude has a strong and consistent effect on being happier. Expressing gratitude helps us feel more positive emotions, we can remember and be grateful for our experiences. This can help us be healthier, get through challenges in a better way, and help build stronger relationships.  While for many, you can get a rush of joy or happiness after something really good happens, gratitude is acknowledging and being grateful for the small things, things that we often overlook. Things like the sun on our face, drinking a glass of water, a chat with a friend, the feel of your softest comfiest clothes on your skin, the smell of rain. Ther are so many small things that have an impact on us every day that we can be grateful for. Now, I’m not saying this is easy! It isn’t! When we are stuck in that negative “doom loop” of thoughts that trauma constantly reinforces, it’s a hard habit to begin to break. Actually, even without trauma, everyone’s brain is initially primed this way! The human brain gives more “weight” to negative things. We tend to pay more attention to negative things, learn more from negative outcomes, and make decisions based on negative information and experiences rather than positive ones! The “bad things” that grab our attention and stick to our memories. Crazy, right? It can affect our motivation: We tend to think about what we might lose or have to give up in pursuing a goal, rather than what we will gain. Interestingly, research has shown that negative news is more likely to be seen as “truthful.” It garners more attention so it can “feel” more accurate. All of this is referred to as “negativity bias.” Researchers believe that this is likely due to evolution. Earlier in human history, paying attention to things that were negative, bad, and dangerous was literally a matter of life and death! Those people that paid attention to the negative things were less likely to take risks and therefore have a better chance at survival. This also means that these genes could be passed on to future generations! So, our brain is trying to do its job and keep us safe.  Research also suggests that this negativity bias starts when we are very small. While infants respond positively to their caretaker's facial expressions, tone of voice, etc., this changes at about a year old. Babies at this age begin to experience greater brain responses to negative things. So, negativity can be seen as genetic or hereditary and add traumas on top of that, it’s no wonder why we tend to see everything through a “glass half empty” viewpoint rather than the “glass half full!” So, for example you are so dreading going to work on Monday, that you don’t get to appreciate your weekend. Or you might be having a good day and one negative comment from another person “ruins” your whole day and you spend your time focused on that negative comment. As trauma survivors, many of us have that “all or nothing” thinking. So, it’s either all good or all bad, there is nothing in between. One small thing can derail us and keep us stuck. So how do we even begin to create gratitude practices when we are up against so much? As always, we start small, one step at a time. When I first started my practice, every day mentally I would say inwardly “I’m grateful for my family, friends, and my pets.” There! I had practiced gratitude! Over time, I wondered why it didn’t help, why wasn’t it working? In researching a bit more, I found that there were ways to practice gratitude in a deeper way, to help connect it to my “soul” to make it stick! Gratitude is like a muscle that you can build, make stronger. We have to find ways to “flip the script” and change our automatic negative responses. Even negative things can have a positive element to them, we just have to look for it.  Say a friend cancels a planned outing you had with them at the last minute that you were really looking forward to. Your brain might jump to “they don’t really like me, or like spending time with me, they always do this” etc. Instead, you might acknowledge your disappointment but instead say to yourself “they must have needed to take some time for themselves, and I’m glad they feel that they are safe to do this with me.”  “I’ll be there for them when they need me.” “We can always reschedule.” Say you get a flat tire. Instead of thinking of all of the negatives associated with it, you could be grateful that you have a job to help pay for the repairs or be grateful that you have friends or family that will come to help you or drive you home. If rain spoils your planned picnic, remember that there will always be sunny and fair days to do it again. Be glad for the life-giving rain. Have your picnic indoors instead!   When we focus on the positive rather than the negative, we get a release of “feel good” chemicals in our brains called serotonin and dopamine. These are associated with greater happiness and pleasure. Thinking this way also reduces our stress hormones which can lead to less anxiety and boost your mood! As this positive “domino effect” continues, it can reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, panic, etc. So, we might sleep better, focus a bit more, create self-esteem, and be more patient not only with others, but with ourselves. We find “glimmers” or threads of things throughout our daily lives we can be grateful for. It isn’t a magic wand, it won’t fix everything, but it is a positive first step in creating better things in our healing journey. So, we begin by being mindful, practicing being present in the now.  Go back through your “mindfulness toolbox” and practice anything we’ve learned together or find something YOU have found that works for you in order to be more present. Then create a gratitude practice plan.  My plan is that I practice my gratitude routine in the morning every day, while I’m having my coffee in bed. It sets the tone for my entire day! It does take some time, effort, and intention. Remember we are trying to change those well-worn pathways into new healthier ones. We learn, we acknowledge, we re-direct our thoughts, and we create change we need!  So, this is where I like to close us out with a new exercise that we can add to that “mindfulness” toolbox we’re building together! Remember, you don’t have to do this now, or at all if you don’t want to, but you might just listen and tuck it away in your mind for future reference. This is a writing exercise. We are going to create a gratitude plan. If you’d like to try this with me, please get a notebook, a piece of paper, even a sticky note and a pen or pencil. You could even type it out in a word doc if you like. Whatever way you participate is fine, as long as it works for you, that’s what matters.  I’d like to invite you to find a place that’s quiet, calm, and as free from distractions as possible. If you’d like you could light some candles, put on some quiet calming music, burn some incense, or use some of your favorite essential oils on the palms of your hands. Breath in the scent. Remind yourself that you are in a safe space, you are safe in this moment, in the now.  We always start with our mindful belly breathing. Breathe slowly in through your nose, your belly naturally pushing out as you inhale, to a count of 5. Hold your breath for a count of 1. Then slowly exhale out of your mouth, your belly should naturally move in as you exhale, to a count of 5. Do this five times.  1 First, decide when you will practice your gratitude plan.  It can be anytime you choose but consider starting out your mornings this way. It really can start your day off in a wonderful way.  2 Think of what “tools” you will need for your practice. Writing is really important and empowering. Get a notebook, or even if you’d like, a dedicated special journal to write in daily. Get a writing implement you like; I like to use gel pens.  Whatever you use doesn’t have to be expensive or “flashy” it has to feel right for you. If you’d like to use an app, there are lots out there. However you do it, it needs to speak to you and your heart.   3 Place your notebook, or journal, and pen or pencil where it is easy to get to. I have mine right on my nightstand so I can get it and start writing in the morning when I am ready. If you are doing this on your computer, use whatever format is comfortable for you whether it’s word, acrobat, or any other

Hey there, it’s Kerri! Thank you so much for joining me on this latest episode of Invisible Wounds Healing from Trauma. This is episode 31 and we’re going to talk about why it’s never too late and what hope is and what role it plays in our lives. I’m so glad that we’re walking the path towards healing together!So just a quick reminder, I’m not a clinician, counselor, or physician. I’m a Certified Trauma and Resiliency Life Coach, a Certified Trauma Support Specialist, Advocate, and someone with lots of lived experience with trauma. Also, the information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and not meant to replace treatment by a doctor or any other licensed professional. Alright, let’s dive in!I really wanted to talk about why it’s never too late, for ANYTHING! When we are really struggling in any area of our lives, we can feel hopeless, helpless, stuck. We can get trapped in our own thoughts, they can cycle through the same things over and over again. Lather, rinse, repeat! I used to have 4 things that bounced around in my head constantly relating back to my traumas: Fear, anger, rejection, failure. With these thoughts cycling in the background of my brain all of the time, it was natural that I acted or REACTED accordingly. My environment also reflected these things. I ended up in jobs that fostered an environment of secrecy, punishment, power control, mind games, they were totally toxic. My relationships were all over the place too. I felt like I was frantically dogpaddling as fast as I could just to keep my head above water, but I was still drowning. I just didn’t see it. That chaos in our minds can spill over into every area of our lives. I pivoted so many times trying to make things better for myself, but I was doing so within these chaotic environment. I tried to remake, redo, reinvent myself so that I would be a better employee, friend, whatever the situation. I was trying to make everyone else happy, everyone except myself! I was miserable and couldn’t understand what was wrong with ME? No matter how hard I tried, it just wasn’t working. What I learned over my life was that it is never too late to change, to reinvent yourself, to start over. However, the key is that you have to do it for YOURSELF, not anyone else! That’s where the psychology of hope comes into play. Hope is a powerful thing. Hope is the reason we hang on to the “why.” The why is meaning, our purpose, our reason for existing. Just going through our days, especially tough ones, we are hopeful that tomorrow will be better. It can be, you can make it that way!With all of our traumatic experiences, life has taught us many difficult lessons. We get to the point where we don’t expect any better, we don’t feel better no matter what we seem to do. We are tired of trying, of starting over. Hope is that little voice inside of us that keeps us putting one foot in front of the other. We keep going in spite of it all. When we want to quit, somehow we keep moving. It’s pretty amazing actually that we do go on, some people don’t. Some people do stop living, stop going on.  I believe that each one of us was put on this earth for a reason. Every one of us has a purpose, something we were born to do. It’s hard finding out what that is with so much chaos, and awfulness inside of our minds, however. Sometimes we really do have to hit rock bottom before we are forced to make a change. I have been at rock bottom so many times in my life. I think the most pivotal moment of rock bottom was being homeless and hungry, with no place to go. That feeling of having no way out, no way forward is absolutely gut wrenching. That time in my life set me on the path to where I am now. It has been a very long road, with lots of missteps, bad choices, more trauma, but I learned. I was so low, that I decided to take a chance on a completely new path starting with my taking a job at a small rural domestic violence shelter in Ohio where I’m from. I needed a job, any job, I applied for it and got it. This was the beginning of me finding my passion, my drive in helping others. That little voice of hope kept me going, kept me trying. That rock bottom also a year later catapulted me into a cross county move with my son Ryan and his friend Kevin. The boys wanted to go to a specific school in Phoenix. My son casually mentioned that I should come too! I was stopped completely for a moment, I froze, as I thought about it. I’m almost 50, could I do it could I make that drastic of a change? Then, on the heels of that thought was “why not?” What have I got to lose? It was like a lightening bolt hit me! So, we got rid of literally almost everything we owned. We saved up between us a decent amount of money, not a lot, but we thought it would at least get us there! We left in December, a week before Christmas. We had 2 cars, in my small car were my 2 large dogs and in the trunk some clothes and some family keepsakes. In the boy’s car they had some personal stuff along with a motorcycle in the trunk. That was it! It was 3 full days of driving; it was quite a trip! We made it to Phoenix, and I remember all of us standing outside of our hotel room just staring at a palm tree! We were amazed and felt like we’d arrived on a completely different planet. The very next day, we found a house to rent, and we moved in immediately! We spent the next 5 days with no electricity or water and the utility offices were closed because of the holiday. We celebrated Christmas by standing around a small candle Kevin had put on the seat of his motorcycle still stunned that we were actually there, we made it! We’re still here over 10 years later! We have all become fairly successful, but not without a lot of bumps along the way. Am I exactly where I want to be in life right now? Nope! Do I see more growth and change on the horizon? Yes!! At almost 60, I still have things I want to do, new things to get accomplished!My message to you is that you don’t have to wait to hit rock bottom to make a change! Is it scary? Hell yes! Is the outcome uncertain? Absolutely! Is it worth it? Yes! I don’t suggest you do things the way we did, I think we got incredibly lucky. Or maybe it was designed perfectly, who knows? The biggest factor is having a desire to do things differently, to do things in a new way. We know that things aren’t working the way we want them to in our lives. We aren’t well, or happy, or fulfilled in what we are doing. We might daydream about what we really want, see ourselves in a dream life, an amazing career, living in a different place, doing amazing things! Who says that can’t be a reality for us? Who says that we can’t have all of those things? WE DO! We tell ourselves it’s ridiculous, it isn’t possible, stop hoping for the impossible. Listen closely to this because it’s really important: The only limits we have on our lives are the limits we set for ourselves in our minds! It’s true!  While trauma has affected us deeply, and terribly, in order to survive, we throw up barriers and walls. Those barriers we throw up as protection, as safeguards against hurt, pain, and disappointment we have created ourselves in our minds! Trauma has taught us to be scared, to feel powerless, to not take chances. We’ve been hurt and disappointed so often in our lives, we have mentally built a steel cage around ourselves. It’s padlocked tight, we’ve stayed in it and thrown away the key! It keeps everything that could possibly hurt us out, it’s true. But it also keeps us locked inside, trapped. We limit ourselves to what is immediately around us in that cage. We lock ourselves in with all of our pain and hurt because that’s what we know! We shut ourselves away from new possibilities, new opportunities, new experiences. We miss out on so much in life. Without that key, without the will to get ourselves out of that cage, we are trapped in a prison of our own creation. So, we might potentially be safe, but at what cost?We need to really take a good honest and open look at ourselves and where we are. What are the limiting beliefs we have created around ourselves that are keeping us stuck? When we dream about what we really want, what do we see? Where are we and what are we doing? Is there one thing that keeps coming up to the front of your mind over and over again, something you really want? Your inner voice of hope is calling to you. You need to listen more closely to it, because it’s telling you it’s time to do things differently.  It’s time to retrieve that key and step out of that cage you’ve built into something new, something you want, something that speaks to who you really are as a person. Not what others tell you to do or how to be. This is you and only you. You have the key; you just have to use it! Does it have to be a drastic life altering all at once change? No, it doesn’t! You can start small, like we always talk about, with those baby steps forward. Just the idea of change is scary for us, but we can plan a bit in order to make it less overwhelming and make it feel more real, more doable. It’s uncomfortable and steeping out of our comfort zone feels terrifying, I get it! I’m still scared so much too, but the more I learn, the more I try things, the more confidence I have in myself and what I can do. If we try something, and it doesn’t work, it’s a learning experience nothing more. It’s not a failure or that you lack any abilities, it just wasn’t the right thing for you, and that’s okay. We have to re-learn how to be curious, like when we were children. We are born curious about everything that’s the way a child learns. I am constantly wondering about things, so I am often looking things up, researching, and learning, and I love it!  We can stop and say to ourselves “I’m curious about______” “I wonder about ______?” “What would happen if I tried ____?” “If I try something and it doesn’t work out, what’s the worst that could happen?” All of these questions can lead to a new understanding of wha

Hey there, it’s Kerri! Thank you so much for joining me on this latest episode of Invisible Wounds Healing from Trauma. This is episode 30 and we’re going to talk about what mindfulness really is, and why it’s so important!I’m so glad that we’re walking the path towards healing together!So just a quick reminder, I’m not a clinician, counselor, or physician. I’m a Certified Trauma and Resiliency Life Coach, a Certified Trauma Support Specialist, Advocate, and someone with lots of lived experience with trauma. Also, the information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and not meant to replace treatment by a doctor or any other licensed professional. Alright, let’s dive in!Mindfulness is a term we hear everywhere. Mindfulness meditation, being “mindful,” practice mindfulness. Just what does being mindful mean anyway? What does that look like and feel like? For a bit of background, mindfulness originated from ancient eastern, Buddhist, and Hinduist philosophy as far back as 2500 years ago! The term comes from the Buddhist concept of “Sati” which relates to the “moment to moment awareness of present events.” However, the more modern translation of “Sati” came in 1881 when Thomas Williams Rhys Davids, a Briton in Sri-Lanka, identified that mindfulness was the closest translation to the meaning of the concept of “Sati.” Although practiced widely in the East, it didn’t really become a “thing” here in the West until the 1970’s. Mindfulness first appeared in the United States because of Jon Kabat-Zinn, a professor of medication emeritus and creator of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center of Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Kabat-Zinn first learned about the philosophical tenets of Buddhism while studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1979, Kabat-Zinn opened the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. There, he adapted Buddhist teachings and created a program called “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction,” or MBSR. This program put MBSR into a scientific framework and diluted the connection between Buddhism and mindfulness. But it still wasn’t until 1990 that his publication of “Full Catastrophe Living” brought global attention to his work. Since then, awareness and practice of mindfulness continued to grow. That’s your history lesson for today!Also, practicing mindfulness does not mean meditation! That’s one way to practice it, but by no means the only way! If you mediate and love it, that’s wonderful! For many of us with trauma histories, meditation can be extremely difficult. Trying to sit quietly with our thoughts in our head is typically something we avoid like the plague! We are already in our own heads enough, we sure as hell don’t want to go there on purpose! For me, learning about mindfulness began in learning about Trauma-Informed Care. I talk about that principle in different ways in almost every podcast. It’s “What happened to you” as opposed to “what’s wrong with you?” It’s the whole brain-body connection in experiencing trauma, our environment, our past learning histories, genetics, everything that has shaped us into the being we are right now. We’ve learned that in experiencing trauma, it affects how our brain wires itself, how our nervous system is always “on” scanning for danger, even when there is no present danger. That constant flood of chemicals throughout our brains and bodies, getting us ready for “Fight, flight, or freeze” prepares us for danger. Even though we aren’t in danger in the moment, our brain tells us we are. That’s one reason why so many of us have different mental health issues including anxiety and panic! We always wonder why our anxiety and panic levels can just suddenly come up out of nowhere, often without reason! I’m home, sitting, relaxing, watching TV, suddenly a panic attack hits! Our brain is doing what it’s supposed to, trying to keep us safe, we just have to find ways to shut off that constant threat mode, and remind it that it’s okay, we aren’t in danger right now thank you very much!Mindfulness is firstly awareness. It’s being aware: Aware of your surroundings, awareness of that moment, awareness of your breath, sounds, physical, mental, and emotional sensations. As survivors of trauma, our brains are almost always either in the past, or in the future. We can be flooded with memories of things, people, places, events, in which we were hurt. Sometimes they are just fragments of things, things we aren’t even really conscious of, but they’re there. Then we can be constantly worried about what’s going to happen next! Next could be the next minute, hour, day, week, month year, the rest of our lives, we worry about it all. So, we are either ahead or behind, but not really “here” in the now, in this moment. Our thoughts swirl around in our brains and that keeps us distracted, unfocused, not able to really to think clearly. We often try to distract ourselves by mindlessly scrolling through social media, YouTube, or online games. It’s avoidance, we are avoiding dealing with it all!  I do it too and I think of gathering my thoughts like trying to “herd cats” very difficult….but not impossible! In my very earliest episodes, when describing what trauma does to our brains and bodies, especially when we experience them in childhood, but it can happen at any age, our brain reverts to survival mode only. It shuts down everything but our basic survival functions. So, our heart beats faster, our breath comes quicker, our blood pressure goes up, our muscles tense up,  we are ready to respond to danger. Our brain shuts down the “thinking” part of the brain called the pre-frontal cortex that’s responsible for things like language, memory, impulse control, learning, logic, and reasoning. So, you really can only react to things, you can’t think things through, can’t question, can’t be logical. Mindfulness can begin by being aware that this is what is happening to us. Then we can plan to take some next steps in order to “flip the script” and become more aware of ourselves in the process.To begin with, it’s okay to slow down or stop. It’s okay to pause, to take a break, to be still. It’s actually more than okay it’s very necessary! We can’t go full tilt boogie physically and/or mentally all of the time, at some point, the machinery will break down, then we are often sick, physically, or otherwise. We have to begin to realize that we are living beings that need care. We are physical beings, living organisms that need more than just the basics to get by. We need more than just air, water, and food. Our brains and bodies are designed to do, learn, adapt, grow, and thrive: we can do amazing things! We are not here to just “get by” or just “get through” our days. We need to feed ourselves with new things, new challenges, new  opportunities to learn, and grow. We also thrive on connection to others; we really aren’t meant to spend our days alone. However, our traumatic experiences have altered how we see not only ourselves, but how we see the world around us. We’ve been in survival mode so long; we don’t know any other way. Anything we DON’T know or anything new is scary, we’ve learned to be afraid of anything challenging because we don’t believe in our abilities to be able deal with things. So, we don’t try, don’t take a chance. Our world becomes smaller and smaller and that just feeds into our feelings that something is “wrong” with us, why aren’t we like other people? Why do we struggle so much? Why can’t we just “be happy?” on and on it goes…Nothing changes overnight, boy I wish it did! We can’t change long-term, well-worn, habitual patterns overnight. Mindfulness begins with awareness, awareness of this moment. In this moment, if there is no real danger present, we are safe. We can practice breathing techniques, grounding exercises, and other mindful activities. For example, anything we do can be a mindfulness activity. Eating can be mindful. Many of us eat on the go, bolting down our food quickly, eating on “autopilot.” We often don’t make good food choices and can stress eat. That is totally me! I have bolted down my food for years. As a kid I didn’t want to have any part of my toxic family dinnertime! As I worked my first jobs, I was a waitress, shoving food in during a short break. Those habits kept on throughout my life. And stress eating? Hell yes! Food has always been my first line of comfort. So, to change this, think about planning a meal that’s good and nourishing for your mind and body. Prepare this meal with some excitement, thinking about how good this is for you. Plan to sit for this special meal you’ve created away from distractions. Turn off the TV, put away your phone. When you sit down for this special meal, you might think about appreciating this food and all of the things that made it possible.  As you are eating, eat slowly, chew thoroughly. Think about how your food tastes to you, think about all of the healthy nutrients as warm light spreading throughout your brain and body, nourishing every part of your being. You can elevate the experience of food to a whole new positive level! Another simple mindful activity is washing your hands. When you wash your hands, as you rub the soap over them, through your fingers,, feel the temperature of the water, how does it feel? Feel the connection of your hands rubbing together, connect to that feeling. Do this for about a minute to really bring that awareness to your mind. Literally anything we do can be made into mindfulness moments. When we shift awareness from those autopilot behaviors into this moment, into the “now” we create new neural pathways in our brains. We can see so many things more clearly, we can learn how to regulate or calm ourselves in so many ways. We can take these moments and be grateful that we are building new habits, new ways to see ourselves. It really makes such a dif

Hey there, it’s Kerri! Thank you so much for joining me on this latest episode of Invisible Wounds Healing from Trauma. This is episode 29 and we’re going to talk about avoidant behaviors and why we use them as a result of trauma.I’m so glad that we’re walking the path towards healing together!So just a quick reminder, I’m not a clinician, counselor, or physician. I’m a Certified Trauma and Resiliency Life Coach, a Certified Trauma Support Specialist, Advocate, and someone with lots of lived experience with trauma. Also, the information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and not meant to replace treatment by a doctor or any other licensed professional. Alright, let’s dive in!To start off, everyone avoids things from time to time. No one likes to deal with negative things, events, people, difficulties, or consequences. Notice that I said from time to time!  However, when we experience trauma and all of the pain that comes with it in all of its many different forms (physical, emotional, mental, financial, environmental, social, relational), it’s a tangle of awfulness! These are all things that we don’t want to feel or process. This is especially true if we have had many traumatic things happen to us. It’s overwhelming pain that we are exposed to over and over again. Who wants to feel that? So over time, we shove down and bury that pain. We hide it deep within ourselves, so we don’t have to deal with it. Avoidance is an emergency coping response we develop. When we feel helpless and vulnerable, avoidance gives us a sense of control. We also bury our trauma so we can “move on” and keep functioning. Along with this we may either consciously or unconsciously begin to avoid people, places, events, situations, and things that we associate with those traumas. For example, if you are bitten by a dog as a child, you may develop a fear of dogs. You then do everything you can to avoid being around or even seeing dogs. You could develop a hatred for dogs, even avoiding going to a friend’s house because they have a dog. It makes sense, you have a traumatic event, develop a fear, then do everything that is within your power to make sure you are never bitten again. Often, however, what begins to happen is that we use avoidance as a coping skill. We avoid anything that might be scary, new, challenging, or unfamiliar. We put things off, we procrastinate. We are so used to burying things that aren’t comfortable for us, that we apply it to everything. One thing that many of us as trauma survivors have is “all or nothing” thinking. It’s either one way or the other, there is no middle ground. So, in using avoidant behavior, instead of avoiding just the situations that caused us trauma, we avoid everything! Our avoidant behaviors can cause us to feel disconnected not only from ourselves and our surroundings but reality as well. We may not even feel physical pain. This can lead to self-harming behaviors like “cutting.” In an effort to have some control, we might develop eating disorders. We also might develop OCD like behaviors, we can become overthinkers and over planners. We might use substances as a further way to avoid “feeling.” We also do anything and everything we can to “distract” ourselves and shift our focus. Do you ever grab your phone and start mindlessly scrolling? Or binge-watching shows or YouTube videos? Me too! We also avoid conflict in a big way! Anything that deals with disagreeing with another, standing up for ourselves, or being assertive feels “wrong” and scary, so we just don’t do it. If there is a possibility someone might get “mad” at us, or find fault with us, nope, we’re not going there! We then might begin avoiding anything that is distressful or that causes fear. Our world can become small, we might not feel safe in the world. So, we have very few relationships, we isolate. We miss out on so much of life, yet we wonder why we can’t just be “happy!”I have always been the “queen” of avoidance! It has been my go-to coping skill throughout my life. Throughout all of the layers upon layers of traumatic events I experienced, I stuffed down my trauma, and thought I was fine, I thought I didn’t have any issues. I kept myself so busy, trying to be “perfect” at everything, as a wife, mother, an employee, I never realized I was trying to “outrun” my trauma! I didn’t have time to think about, feel, or deal with it. Over time, I began to shut down even more, shut off my feelings, and emotions. As I got older and my children grew up and moved out, my world became smaller and smaller. I became frozen, trapped, stuck in an awful cycle of avoidance. It impacted every aspect of my life, my physical and mental health, my relationships, my work, my environment. I felt completely helpless, guilty, ashamed of myself. It’s that self-destructive spiral that just goes on and on..Avoidant behaviors can snowball and get worse over time. It can impact our ability to work, our finances, almost every aspect of our lives. We are trying so hard to control our lives to keep ourselves from pain, from being hurt again, that it becomes this huge wall, a barrier to the outside, to life. We create this illusion of safety for ourselves. Only the “known” is safe, everything else is a threat! But as we continue to avoid things that really need our attention, like our finances for example, this can lead to serious issues. If we spend money we don’t really have we can end up being overdrawn in our bank account. If we don’t pay our bills, they might compound fees and penalties, so we end up owing even more money. It’s a vicious cycle: Avoid, negative consequences, avoid, more negative consequences, on and on. These kinds of things also reinforce in a negative way how we “see” ourselves, how we feel about ourselves. We don’t feel capable, smart, self-confident, sure of ourselves. The deeper and deeper we get into our avoidant behaviors, the worse we feel. Each negative consequence makes us feel helpless, out of control, and brings us a feeling of “failure.” At the core of all of it is fear, we are scared to death of being hurt again. We have been through so much; we don’t ever want to feel those things again. We are also terrified of making mistakes, of failure. We are so afraid of being afraid that we don’t even try. We feel stuck, frozen, unable to move. We feel helpless, powerless, out of control. Under all of that are the behaviors we developed in order to cope with our trauma. They were survival behaviors that served a purpose at that time, in those moments. But now they are holding us back, keeping us from everything that life has to offer us. We need to remember that in this moment, we are safe. What is facing us now is NOT what we were facing in the past, back then. Our feelings and thoughts are just that, they are reactions that our mind has developed around things that have happened to us. The facts are that we did go through some awful, terrible, painful, life altering and traumatic things. We were hurt in so many ways. We found ways to survive it, get through it all, right up to this moment. Survivors of any trauma are a testament to the absolute strength and resiliency of the human spirit. When you even look at trauma through the lens of history through current events, human beings are capable of amazing things! We are beings who want to live, to succeed, to thrive. We want connection, community, a tribe of like-minded and supportive people. When we are born, we are a clean slate. We have no preconceived ideas, no biases, no prejudices, no guilt, no shame, no judgements. We are primed to learn, to grow, to be curious, full of infinite possibilities! The limits that come to us are created by so many things, but we can learn to remove those limits, tear down those walls that we’ve built. We can open ourselves to our own limitless expanse, re-prime that natural need to connect, to try, to thrive, not just survive!Is it easy? Absolutely not. It takes work, patience, and lots of self-compassion and self-care. We know things aren’t working they way they are now in our lives, and we want to make a change. It takes stepping out of our comfort zone, taking a step towards the unknown, the unfamiliar. It’s uncomfortable as hell, and we’ll automatically throw up those old well-worn survival patterns of avoidance. But in learning about our avoidant behaviors, why we do it and what it really means, can help us to create a new plan, a new strategy. We can change the unhealthy into healthy, negative into a positive, limited to limitless, impossible to possible. We start small, one step at a time. You can’t change things overnight, it takes time. But we’ll get there, I promise, we’ll work together, I’m with you every step of the way!So, this is where I like to close us out with a new exercise that we can add to that “mindfulness” toolbox we’re building together! Remember, you don’t have to do this now, or at all if you don’t want to, but you might just listen and tuck it away in your mind for future reference.This is a writing exercise. Before we begin, if you’d like to try this with me, please get a piece of paper, a notebook, even a sticky note and a pencil or pen. If you are like me, you could even type it out in a word document. Whatever way you participate is fine, as long as it works for you, that’s what matters. I’d like to invite you to find a place that’s quiet, calm, and as free from distractions as possible. If you’d like you could light some candles, put on some quiet calming music, burn some incense, or use some of your favorite essential oils on the palms of your hands. Breath in the scent. You are in a safe space, you are safe in this moment, in the now. We always start with our mindful belly breathing. Breathe slowly in through your nose, your belly naturally pushing out as you inhale, to a count of 5. Hold your breath for a count of 1. Then slowly exhale out of your mouth, your belly should naturally move in as y

Hey there, it’s Kerri! Thank you so much for joining me on this latest episode of Invisible Wounds Healing from Trauma. This is episode 28 and we’re going to talk about what self-sabotage is and why we do it as trauma survivors.I’m so glad that we’re walking the path towards healing together!So just a quick reminder, I’m not a clinician, counselor, or physician. I’m a Certified Trauma and Resiliency Life Coach, a Certified Trauma Support Specialist, Advocate, and someone with lots of lived experience with trauma. Also, the information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and not meant to replace treatment by a doctor or any other licensed professional. Alright, let’s dive in!Did you ever have a time in your life where things are going well, great even. You are doing well, feeling positive about how things are going. This could be in any area of your life, even your job. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, you begin to procrastinate, putting things off. You might start things but never finish them. At work, you may miss deadlines, or you might start coming in late. You may forget important things, tasks, meetings, projects, or presentations. This is eventually noticed by your boss, and can lead to negative consequences, even the loss of your job. In personal relationships, this might lead to estrangement or even the loss of those relationships. You might start conflict with others, or even self-medicate with substances. Self- sabotage is the conscious or unconscious process of destroying or the undermining of things in our lives. It’s like throwing up “roadblocks” or creating things or situations that stop us or hold us back from succeeding. Most of the time, it happens without our thinking about it, it’s unconscious. We want to be successful, happy, and productive so why do things keep happening to stop us? Why do these negative things keep blocking us from being successful? It is actually a way we protect ourselves in life. When we’ve been through trauma, our brain is always on high alert. Everything feels like danger, a threat. Self-sabotaging behaviors appear for many different reasons. As survivors of trauma, we hold a LOT of fear. We are afraid of stepping out of our comfort zone. We are afraid we’ll let others down, we are afraid of the unknown. We lack trust, we don’t trust others to support us. That lack of trust goes for how we feel about ourselves too. We don’t have trust in ourselves, in our capabilities. We lack self-esteem and self-confidence. We fear success! What happens if we succeed? Then we’ll really have to step up to the plate, be more visible, do more, be responsible for more! What if we can’t do it? Others may find out we’re a “fake” that we’re not up to the challenges. What if we fail? Fear of failure is the ultimate “fear” we have! If we fail, others will see that we aren’t really the person we’ve said we are. Imposter syndrome is that feeling we have that we’re a fake or a fraud. Even though we’ve had successes in our lives in many areas and have shown that we are capable of extraordinary things, we don’t really deep down in our souls believe it. We feel that we put on this false self to others, we are high functioning, we can do anything. We can be perfectionists, we agonize, overanalyze, and are critical of every little thing we do. We can be filled with anxiety over every move we make. Every mistake, no matter how small, is a catastrophic event, it feels like the end of the world. We also take any form of re-direction or criticism very personally. We may feel like we’re being personally “attacked” rather than using it as an opportunity for growth and learning. We feel that we have to work the hardest, be the most dedicated employee, friend, partner. The harder we work, the more we do, the more others will “see” us, see our value and worth. We are looking to others for validation and confirmation rather than feeling it and looking to ourselves for that worth, that value. With trauma, especially in childhood, we are not taught that we have worth, value, and purpose just as a being that exists in the world. We learn not to trust others, and we don’t trust ourselves, our thoughts, and how we view the world around us. We don’t trust our “gut instincts” we don’t see ourselves as having a direction or a purpose. Hell, we don’t even oftentimes know what we LIKE! What are your hobbies? I have no clue! We weren’t taught self-confidence, to love and care for ourselves. We grew up in survival mode, just trying to make it from one thing to the next. So now as adults trying to function as best we can in a world we don’t really know how to deal with, is it any wonder we throw up those “roadblocks” and self-sabotage? We are so scared of the unknown, what comes next. We are so scared we’ll fail; we won’t be good enough. These thoughts and feelings just reinforce what we feel about ourselves. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. We set ourselves up for failure. We don’t believe in ourselves, eventually we throw up those roadblocks, things fall apart, and negative consequences appear. See, we aren’t good enough, smart, enough, worthy enough. We don’t deserve success, happiness, healthy relationships, a rewarding career, whatever it might be. This has happened to me so many times over my life, I’ve lost count. I could never understand my behavior. I worked extremely hard to be the “best” at everything I did. Especially at work, I pushed myself harder than anyone else. I felt like I “talked” a good game, I was great at self-promotion, I was up for any extra project, and task, I never said no. So, I would end up completely overloaded and overwhelmed. I would start things but not finish them or if I did, it was at the last minute. They were done hastily. Eventually, my boss would say something about my performance, and I would literally go into “freeze” mode! I shut down immediately and my survival brain kicked in, ready for that “end of the world” feeling., that ultimate feeling that I was a failure, a loser, an imposter. Now everyone would know I wasn’t who I pretended to be, who I said I was. I’ve lost jobs, opportunities, and relationships in my life because of these self-fueling behaviors. It has taken me a lot of really hard work to get past all of those deep seeded feelings and behaviors. And some of those feelings still come up. It’s really hard to change those well-worn survival “auto-pilot” behaviors in our brains. But now I take a step or two back, think things through. I give myself a moment to assess the situation and look at it in the “now” as opposed to linking it to something that happened in the past. I try not to react emotionally or impulsively to things that might be said or pointed out in regard to my performance. I think of it now as an opportunity for growth and learning rather than something negative. Working on self-confidence and self-esteem is an ongoing process! Tackling new things has always been challenging for me, new and unfamiliar has always been scary. But I take things one small step at a time, realizing that I do have the capabilities and capacity to learn and even to be creative! I now understand what my strengths, core values, and beliefs are. This not only applies to myself, but in how I see and interpret the world around me. When my trauma brain tries to take the driver’s seat, I have to push it off to the side, and take control myself in the here and now. In learning how to stop self-sabotaging or torpedoing things, we have to learn to recognize what we are doing. We have to take a look at things from a wider viewpoint. I call it the “30,000-foot view.” We get so caught up in the tiniest of things, we aren’t able to pick up our heads and see things for what they really are. Think of situations where you’ve put things off or waited until the last minute to do them. What is it about these situations that made you avoid them? There is a reason why, what is it? If it’s fear what specifically are you afraid of, what do you think will happen? We also have to remind ourselves that when things come up, we have to stay present, in that moment. This is not your past, this is not your trauma, this is something happening now. If we can identify our reactions, think about them, and reframe them, we can slowly begin to practice responding and reacting differently. If we are taking on too many things, it’s perfectly acceptable and okay to say NO! I know saying that little word feels scary, but it’s necessary. If we have too much going on to handle, we are setting ourselves up for failure. We can only juggle so many things at once! You can say no, and you can delegate things to others instead of doing everything by yourself!We create new habits and patterns slowly, with practice. It starts with learning, knowledge, and the understanding of why we react and behave in the ways that we do. Our trauma histories have taught us things about ourselves that aren’t true. Once we have identified these things, we can arm ourselves with the real truth, with the facts that we are capable, worthy, strong, brave, smart, and that we have the tools we need in order to handle whatever comes our way. Look at what we’ve gone through, we’ve survived, we’re still here! Reminding ourselves of what we’ve accomplished, and how far we’ve really come is so important in healing. We can take that understanding and build on that through positive reinforcement, focusing on our successes rather than what we feel are failures. Everyone, I mean EVERYONE makes mistakes, no matter how successful, smart, competent, or capable they are. Everyone screws up, has fears, has doubts. We are human, we all have times where we don’t feel we measure up. We are perfectly “imperfect.” The difference is in how we respond to those times. Do we punish ourselves and those around us, or do we take it as a learning opportunity and use it to build on our strengths? So, this is where I like to close us out with a new ex

Hey there, it’s Kerri! Thank you so much for joining me on this latest episode of Invisible Wounds Healing from Trauma. This is episode 25 and we’re going to talk about why it’s so important to understand and accept our experiences, and to let our need for the “why” go!I’m so glad that we’re walking the path towards healing together!So just a quick reminder, I’m not a clinician, counselor, or physician. I’m a Certified Trauma and Resiliency Life Coach with lots of lived experience with trauma. Also, the information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and not meant to replace treatment by a doctor or any other licensed professional. Alright let’s dive in!In the last few episodes, we talked a lot about different aspects of relationships, particularly those involving abuse. Many of us have been abused and neglected throughout our lives by family members, friends, partners, and others. I know something I really had trouble getting past was this deep seeded need to know WHY I had been abused and neglected by those people in my life. I would replay scenarios over and over in my mind where I confronted them. I would pour out all of my hurt, pain, confusion, and anger to them. In my mind, they listened, then began explaining to me what had driven their behavior. This began when I was really young around my dad’s behavior. His abusive behavior towards my mother, his drinking, his abuse and neglect of my and my sister, his job moving us around all the time, I just didn’t understand why this was all happening. I didn’t understand why I had to be the parent and care for my mom, raise my sister until her death at 6 years old. I was so angry and had no clue what to do with it all! This desperate need to know kept on throughout my teen years and spilled over into my abusive relationship. I fully expected that at some point, I was going to demand and get the answers I wanted and needed! In my mind, this was the only way I would ever be able to move forward and get through my trauma! Boy, how wrong I was!Really, when you think about it, what reason or explanation would ever be acceptable as to why someone has abused you? There is an expression that I see and hear posted a lot on Facebook and other social media sites “Hurt people hurt people” and I can’t stand that phrase! There are so many of us who’ve been extremely hurt and abused but we don’t hurt others! We go out of our way NOT to because we know how it feels! We help others, lift each other up in spite of everything. Of course, everyone has moments of anger, frustration and it can spill over onto others, that’s being human. But it isn’t willfully and deliberately causing another person physical, mental, emotional, and environmental harm as a way to control them. There isn’t an excuse for abuse, period. My first “ah ha” moment came when I confronted my dad, and I know I’ve mentioned this before, but even as an adult in my 30’s I was terrified of actually telling him how I felt. Lifelong conditioning of “we’re not going to tell this to your dad” from my mom literally made me “clam up” around my dad. No matter how badly I wanted to say something, the words just wouldn’t come out! I don’t know what I thought was going to happen, but I just couldn’t tell him how I felt. Things were complicated even more by his wife. 6 weeks after my mom died, he told me he was seeing someone, and that I needed to get into the house and take whatever I wanted to of my mother’s things because he was moving this person in and any of mom’s stuff was going to get pitched out! I spent an agonizing week going through every item of jewelry, pictures, clothing, furniture all while screaming and crying. My grief and pain were fresh, raw, and physical, like something you could touch. It was awful, but I took everything, even though I had no room for items like her furniture and piano, I took it all... the only thing he wouldn’t let me take was my mother’s prized position a beautiful cherrywood hutch that belonged to her mother, my grandmother Fitzgerald. My mother always talked about how this would get passed on to me, then to my children. I begged him to let me take it, but he said no that SHE was planning on using it… we did have a discussion however, that he said he would put into his will that when he died, it would come to me. That didn’t’ happen, however. The memory of what happened to that hutch still hurts. Dad and his wife decided about 10 years ago to move to an assisted living facility, so they were going to auction off all of their belongings and sell the house. I mentioned the hutch and just assumed that I would be getting it. What he said next stunned me. He said that he “didn’t care for how I had treated some of mom’s things” and that the hutch would not be coming to me, it would be sold at the auction! What he was referring to was the fact that when I took all of my mom’s things initially, I was living in a 750ft sq house, it was tiny. So, I had to store lots of stuff in the garage, I had no place to put it. But if I didn’t take it, he was going to toss it out! So, living in rural Ohio no matter how carefully I stored things, I lost stuff due to mice and other critters. This was not my dad speaking, this was his wife, she couldn’t stand me, and the feeling was mutual. She was not nice or decent to either me or my children. When they married, she took control of everything, and my dad was happy being the “backseat” driver in life! I don’t think my dad would have cared otherwise. So that hutch, that piece of my mother’s beloved family history was sold at auction for $150.00…. The same thing happened with our “family business” that my parents, my husband, and I started in 1989. My mom died in 1991, so for 10 years it was my dad, my husband and myself. The agreement was when he was ready to get out of it, it was to come to us. That was the belief and agreement until one day, my dad came into my office and said he’d decided to not only “sell” the business, but he had a buyer for it! Again, my husband and I both were stunned…we were retained by the new owners just long enough for them to get a handle on things, then we were out. My husband and I both know who the real driving force was behind that one as well. On his own, my dad wouldn’t have thought that way. Sorry, had to get that out! Those were big “need to know why” moments for me! Now back to the subject!So back to confronting my dad, even though we only lived 5 minutes apart, I wrote him a letter. I also included printouts of the effects of abuse and neglect on children, PTSD symptoms, and some other information. I made sure to highlight what had impacted me, and why I behaved the way I did when I was a child and teen. I mailed it, and waited… It took him about 2 weeks to respond. He called me and said that he’d gotten my letter and said he guessed we should talk about it. So, we met for lunch at a little local place. When I walked into the restaurant, a wave of dread washed over me, this was it, the moment I’d been waiting for all my life, it was here. What would happen, what would he say? What would I say? I don’t remember all of the details of the conversation, how it began. But I remember going over the points of how abuse and neglect affect a child, and how it can make them behave. As a child, I had frequent meltdowns (I was terrified of everything and had no one to show me how to deal with my feelings). I recounted the constant fear, hypervigilance, the bullying I endured in every new school, how the frequent moves affected me, mom’s illnesses, his drinking and yelling, all of it. His response to me was that “yes, he knew what he did was abusive, but it was all he knew.” He also told me “I was a difficult child to love” and that “your mother and I should have never married and had children.” Really? There was no “I’m sorry” no accountability, no ownership of anything. So, there I was, left with that, to sit with it, and process it. There was no moment of connecting, no real resolution. What he said just laid there, like a big blob, or a lead balloon. So now what? What do I do with that?It was then that I realized that I would have to take what was offered and either: a) continue to rail against the unfairness of it all or b) find a way to make some peace with it. It did help that I had finally laid all of my cards out on the table so to speak and gotten all of that snarl and tangle of things out to him at least. So, there was that. I also realized that this was the only thing I was ever going to get from him. He was never going to be the dad that I wanted or needed, the one I had always wished him to be. I told him that too. At this point, it was up to me to decide if we were going to have any kind of relationship going forward. I couldn’t bring myself to cut off my relationship with him. I realized I would have to let go of the idea of who I wanted him to be and deal with who he was. I had to kind of suspend my feelings and beliefs. So, we did that for the remainder of his life. I moved to Phoenix over 10 years ago now, and I never physically saw him again. We kept in touch by phone. The last year of his life he got very sick, and we talked often. There were lots of ‘I love you’s” at the end of our conversations which was good. He died suddenly in 2021 and I still have a kind of tug of war in my heart over him.  Again, I have to remind myself that the person who is gone is not exactly who I miss. So, on the heels of this understanding, there began to be even more understanding and self-awareness around lots of other things that happened to me in my life. I was never going to understand why my abusive partner hurt and tortured me. After I left the last time for good, I never spoke to him again, and if I had just like he had done many times before, none of the apologies, or tears, or explanations, or even threats made any difference! Same with the other people in my life that hurt me!As trauma survivors, we

Hey there, it’s Kerri! Thank you so much for joining me on this latest episode of Invisible Wounds Healing from Trauma. This is episode 23 and we’re going to talk about things we may not realize that can happen in a relationship involving an abusive partner. I’m going to add a disclaimer here, because we are going to be discussing specific aspects of Domestic Violence or Intimate Partner Violence and it could be triggering. If it is, pause the episode. Do some mindful belly breathing, or any of the other tools we’ve learned, or one you like to use to get grounded, centered, and feel safe. Then come back when you’re ready.I’m so glad that we’re walking the path towards healing together!So just a quick reminder, I’m not a clinician, counselor, or physician. I’m a Certified Trauma and Resiliency Life Coach, and a Certified Trauma Support Specialist with lots of lived experience with trauma. Also, the information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and not meant to replace treatment by a doctor or any other licensed professional. An added note: If you are in a relationship where your safety, mental, physical, and emotional health are at risk, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for help in leaving the relationship safely and other resources. If you are in a situation where you feel you are in immediate danger, please call 911! Alright let’s dive in!In the last few episodes, we’ve gone over different types of relationships including abusive relationships, and how those of us with trauma histories can be particularly vulnerable to becoming involved with relationships involving abuse. We’ve also talked about the fact that the price we pay for being in these types of relationships comes at a HUGE personal cost to ourselves!Today, I want to talk about a couple of things that we often don’t even think about or realize that can happen to us during a physical incident. We need to think about BRAIN INJURY and what happens to our brain when we get physically hurt. We all know basically what our brain looks like inside of our skull. Our brain is connected to our body by the spinal cord. The brain is surrounded in our skull by something called Cerebrospinal fluid. This clear fluid acts as a kind of “shock absorber” or cushion to protect our brains. If we are jolted this helps keep the brain from hitting the inside of our hard, boney skull. However, when we are being physically hurt by anyone, or more specifically in this case by our intimate partner, it can actually hurt our brains! If you are hit anywhere in the head, face, or neck, are violently shaken, are thrown, shoved, pushed, or strangled, this can all cause damage to our brains. When these things happen, the fluid around our brains isn’t enough to cushion it or stop it from banging against the inside of our skull. Think of a pickle in a jar, surrounded by the green brine. If you shake the jar rapidly back and forth that pickle will bang against the inside of the jar. The same thing happens to your brain. During my abusive relationship, I was hit repeatedly in the head and face with open and closed fists, with objects too. I was violently shaken, I was thrown against walls, hit my head on concrete floors, tables, counters, you name it, I collided with it! When our brains slam back and forth against our skull, this is called a concussion. It is an injury to our brain and we most likely don’t even realize it. I know after I was hurt, I would have headaches, dizziness, see “stars” or spots, feel confused and disoriented, but these things would gradually go away. But these types of injuries happened very frequently to me, so my brain never had the chance to heal from one incident to the next. Over time, I noticed that I had very frequent headaches, my memory was terrible, my balance was way off, and even though I have an excellent vocabulary, I found I couldn’t find words in my mind for things. While reading, words would “jump around” on the page, it was so weird! I also got confused easily. One night while I was driving on a 2-lane road, I was in the right lane as I should have been. Suddenly, I pulled over into the left lane and started driving in it like it was completely normal. Thank God there was no oncoming traffic! My abuser was in the car with me, talking to a friend of his in the back seat and it took him about 10 seconds before he realized what I was doing. He screamed at me to get back into the correct lane! It was like I suddenly “woke up” and realized what I was doing. I pulled back into the right lane and was completely shaken! What the hell had just happened?? I knew something was wrong, really wrong! It wasn’t until I left my abuser for good that I found out what was going on. 4 months after I left the last time, I suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm. It’s a brain bleed, and many people don’t survive. I shouldn’t have, I was extremely lucky! During all of the testing and scans they did of my brain at that time, scarring and places in my brain from old injuries showed up. I have Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). It still sounds strange when I say it out loud. We are finding out more and more about TBI as a result of Intimate Partner Violence and how often it happens. We get hurt by our abusers but unless it’s something drastic or an extremely bad injury, we typically aren’t “allowed” to get medical treatment. I mean, that could get our abuser in trouble, right?  BUT If you ever have an incident where your head is hurt and you lose consciousness, or have nausea, or vomiting you need immediate medical attention! Do not HESITATE to call 911!! So, we do the best we can to try and heal on our own. However, many of us are hurt repeatedly, over, and over and our brains get hurt, and we don’t have a chance to heal from one injury to the next. Over time that “builds” up. Some of you may notice things like I did: Bad memory, headaches, dizziness, terrible balance, fogginess, and forgetfulness, among other things.  Other symptoms are things like blurry vision, slurred speech, ringing in the ears and being really sensitive to lights and sounds. You might sleep more or less than usual, have mood swings, or feel really depressed. Almost worse than being injured, is how our abusers can use these symptoms against us! Here we are: hurt and not able to recover, experiencing so many different symptoms and our abusers tell us that we’re stupid, lazy, can’t say or do things right, whatever it might be. They find fault with us, and we believe them! Again, it’s that “It must be me; it must be something wrong with me!” During an abusive relationship we become conditioned into believing that something is inherently wrong with us, we hear it over and over again. It really is like being a prisoner of war. We really live through varying degrees of torture, and it doesn’t have to be physical! The fear, the mental, emotional, financial, abuse, being deprived of support, connection, help, hope, sleep, food, it all takes its toll on us! When I was teaching classes at the domestic violence shelter at worked at here in Phoenix, one evening during class, I was talking about some of the signs and symptoms of brain injury. I mentioned one of my symptoms, the one where words “jump around” on a page while reading. One of the ladies in my class jumped up suddenly. She had this stunned look on her face. She said, “When I read, that happens, words move around on the page, letters get mixed up!” I said again that these can be signs of brain injury. She looked at me and said “You mean I might actually have something wrong with me? I’m not dumb or stupid?” I told her gently that of course she wasn’t stupid, and that we needed to look into getting her to a doctor right away. She sat down and started crying, but they were tears of relief, tears of letting go of that “false” narrative she had heard for so long from her abuser. I will never forget her, or that moment! We did get her treatment, and therapy and her symptoms improved so much! Over the years, I have had many of those kinds of moments with survivors, when that “light” comes on, they make that connection. Not that it’s okay to have anything physically wrong with you, but understanding that it isn’t our fault, it’s not a failure of some kind on our part. It’s a physical thing, an injury that we can heal from, make better, and repair!The other part of this is that symptoms of trauma, mental health, and brain injury can all overlap: they have many of the same symptoms! So how do you know what’s going on? You really don’t, not unless you get medical attention. Concussions also don’t always show up on a brain scan (CT) or even an MRI. But there are other ways medical professionals can diagnose brain injury It’s pretty safe to assume that if you get hit in the head, face, neck, or are violently shaken, thrown, or hit your head against anything, you’ve likely suffered a concussion or brain injury. Another piece to this puzzle is strangulation. Strangulation cuts off oxygen to your brain and can cause brain injury! This is not the same thing as choking, there is a difference! Choking is like what happens to you when you get a piece of food stuck in your throat. Strangulation is any external or outside pressure put on your airway that restricts your breathing! This could be from someone’s hands or arm around your neck, or someone sitting on your chest or back, or by using something on or around your neck to cut off your breathing like a rope, scarf, belt, anything. It takes a very small amount of pressure on someone’s neck to cause a decrease in oxygen to the brain and cause damage. A very serious note: If your abuser strangles you or has EVER strangled you, your risk of being killed by them is 10 TIMES HIGER!! Abusers can use this as the ultimate weapon of control. They are demonstrating to you that they have the ability to hold your life in their hands. They can take it away in an instant, and many a

Hey there, it’s Kerri! Thank you so much for joining me on this latest episode of Invisible Wounds Healing from Trauma. This is episode 22 and we’re going to talk about the unintended “price we pay” in being involved in a relationship involving an abusive partner. I’m going to add a disclaimer here, because we are going to be discussing specific aspects of Domestic Violence or Intimate Partner Violence and it could be triggering. If it is, pause the episode. Do some mindful belly breathing, or any of the other tools we’ve learned, or one you like to use to get grounded, centered, and feel safe. Then come back when you’re ready.I’m so glad that we’re walking the path towards healing together!So just a quick reminder, I’m not a clinician, counselor, or physician. I’m a Certified Trauma Support Specialist with lots of lived experience with trauma. Also, the information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and not meant to replace treatment by a doctor or any other licensed professional. An added note: If you are in a relationship where your safety, mental, physical, and emotional health are at risk, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for help in leaving the relationship safely and other resources. If you are in a situation where you feel you are in immediate danger, please call 911! Alright let’s dive in!In the last few episodes, we’ve gone over different types of relationships including abusive relationships, and how those of us with trauma histories can be particularly vulnerable to becoming involved with relationships involving abuse. I want to start off by reminding ourselves that IT IS NOT OUR FAULT! There is so much guilt and shame we associate with ourselves, and our choices. Our trauma histories have already gotten us to the point where we don’t believe in ourselves. Then our abusive partner just reinforces that belief by putting us down, telling us we’re “stupid” or we’re “no good.” We don’t think we can feel any lower than we already do, but layer on top of layer of that reinforcement sinks us right to the bottom. I absolutely can’t stand that age old statement made by those who have no clue about the dynamics of an abusive relationship: “Why don’t they just LEAVE?!” Sure, in theory, it sounds simple, it’s just a choice you make right? I’m not good with this, I’m outta here! But that’s NOT how this works! To begin with, even though they hurt us, we love these people. We started out with who we thought was a loving, intense, passionate, kind, caring and devoted person. They treated us so lovingly, and well. We had no idea what we were walking into. Once the abusive behavior starts, they start knocking out all of our support systems. They cut us off from friends and family, they control our every move, everything we say and do. It doesn’t take long before we are in a very difficult position. We may have no job, or access to money. We may have no transportation, no way to get around. If we have children, that makes it even MORE difficult! Abusers, tell us that we’d never be able to make it without them, and that no one else would want us, and we believe it, we “buy the lie.” We become prisoners not only through them, but by what we believe in our own minds about ourselves. I know that at times in my abusive relationship, I felt like a trapped or caged animal. My brain constantly raced and alternated between trying to figure out how to be “perfect” to keep him from getting angry, to how I could escape, how would I survive, how could I get money to leave? The biggest fear was what he would do to me if he caught me? If he caught me trying to leave, I knew he’d kill me.  My thoughts were like a hummingbird, wings beating a million times a second, banging around in my head, swirling frantically, trying to find a way out. The answer was usually the same, it “made sense” to wait it out. Surely, I could love the anger and rage out of him, I just needed to do more, be “more” of what he wanted. But there is nothing: no amount of love, no better way to be, no other way to “do” things that will change the fact that an abuser is an abuser. They “get off” on causing us hurt and pain! They crush our souls, completely control us, then feed us just enough crumbs of love, attention, or affection to keep us hooked. The constant “whiplash” of these behaviors leaves us completely deflated, confused, feeling helpless, and hopeless. We live for and are desperate for the return of the person that we first fell in love with.  That person however, never really existed, that was the “hook” they used to get us under their complete control. That was the first lie we bought into, followed of course, by many others.I’ve mentioned before that it took 5 times of leaving and going back before I stayed away for good. Every time I left; it was an act of complete desperation. I would decide I just couldn’t take it anymore and I would beg my parents to wire me money. My abuser was an extremely heavy daily drinker, so I would wait for him to pass out in bed at night. I could tell by his breathing that he was most likely out cold. Silently, I would grab my stuff out of the closet, and bedroom, terrified that he’d wake up. If he made a sound, or moved I instantly froze, my heart stopping. If he woke up and caught me, I would be dead, so I made peace with that in a strange way. There were times I was really physically injured, and this just made it harder to get my things together, and just move! I would make multiple trips out to load up my car. When I pulled out of the driveway as slowly and carefully as I could, it was gravel, I’d drive down the road slowly and quietly until the house was out of site. Then I’d hit the gas, flying, speeding away as fast as I could. My mind sort of started this “internal timer.” How far away, driving as fast as I could, would I get before he woke up and realized I was gone? I had to dive to a town in Maryland about 45 minutes away to pick up the money my parents had wired me. Several times, I’d get there long before the place was open, so I’d anxiously wait in the car, constantly scanning my surroundings, hoping he wouldn’t have found a way to follow me! When I was able to get the money, I’d drive as fast as I was able to, putting as many miles behind me as I could. Each state line I crossed, the more relieved I felt! I’d get back to my parents’ house and tried to live some sort of a normal life for a while. With my toxic family, however, that wasn’t possible. I was still really young; and with all of the impacts of all of the traumas that I’d had, just had no clue who I was, what I wanted, needed, or deserved! So, my abuser would start calling the house. My parents would answer the phone, tell him off, or just hang up, but he was desperately persistent. Eventually, he’d get me on the phone, and he was that sweet person I had initially fallen in love with. I still loved him, I missed him, well I missed the person he pretended to be! He would apologize, over and over again for hurting me, saying he was “getting help” and that he wouldn’t do it again. He wrote me long, sweet letters (remember this was long before the days of cell phones and internet) which I loved getting. These things tugged on my heartstrings of course, this is exactly what he knew it would do. This behavior got me back 4 different times! So, I’d decide to go back, and for a while, things were great…. until they weren’t.  Every time I went back, the abuse intensified, and he made it even harder for me to leave. It was like a noose tightening a little more each time, strangling me slowly. When I finally left for good, he still called my parents house off and on for over a year before he finally stopped. He’d call after 11:00 PM, if the phone rang late like that, we knew it was him. It sent chills through me every time, I was still terrified of him. The price that we end up paying for being in abusive relationships comes with a cost that is too damn high! That cost involves our entire being, body and soul. We end up sacrificing everything we are, everything we have, for someone else. We sacrifice all of the good things, the possibilities, the experiences, the opportunities we might have developed for ourselves. No relationship is ever worth giving up what makes you, YOU! No relationship should make us feel worthless, hopeless, or deprive us of our independence.  No relationship should be one sided: meaning we are giving everything and getting little to nothing in return! No relationship should EVER make us feel like our safety or even our lives, or that of our children’s is in jeopardy! No one has the right to tell us what we can and cannot do or control every aspect of our lives. We have at the very least, the most basic of human rights. In 1948, the United Nations created a document titled “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”  (I’ll link it in my show notes) and you can read it here.  We have the absolute right to live our lives in our own way, and to be treated with dignity, and respect. Every person has the right to live a life free from cruel, degrading, and inhumane treatment. We have the absolute right to live safely, happily, and as well as we can. I know it’s easier said than done however, and it takes seeing ourselves as deserving of all of those things! If we’ve had our spirits and souls broken, how do we begin the process of putting those pieces back together? We begin by learning, which is what we’re doing together right now. When we learn what trauma has done to us, and how it has impacted us in every way: physically, mentally, emotionally, environmentally, spiritually, financially, socially, and in our relationships with others, we can give ourselves grace. We can begin to understand why we react, respond, and make choices the way we do, why we tend to “choose” the wrong people to be involved with. Remember, we “don’t know what we don’t know!” If we weren’t taught to love, r